RAMALLAH: Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh said Monday he was resigning to allow a broad consensus among Palestinians to be formed on a political arrangement after Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza.
The move comes amid growing US pressure on President Mahmoud Abbas to shake up the Palestinian Authority as international efforts intensify to halt the fighting in Gaza and begin work on a political structure to govern the enclave after the war.
His resignation must still be accepted by Abbas, who may ask him to stay on as administrator until a permanent replacement is named.
Shtayyeh, an academic economist who took office in 2019, said in a cabinet statement that the next phase will have to take into account the emerging reality in Gaza, which has been devastated by nearly five months of heavy fighting.
He said the next phase would “require new governmental and political measures that take into account the emerging reality in the Gaza Strip, national unity talks and the urgent need for an inter-Palestinian consensus.”
In addition, it would require “extending the jurisdiction of the Authority to the whole country, Palestine.”
The Palestinian Authority, created 30 years ago under the interim Oslo peace accords, exercises limited rule over parts of the occupied West Bank, but lost power in Gaza after fighting Hamas in 2007.
Fatah, the faction that controls the Palestinian Authority, and Hamas are trying to reach an agreement on a unity government and are due to meet in Moscow on Wednesday. A senior Hamas official said the move must be followed by a broader agreement on Palestinian governance.
“The resignation of Shtayye’s government only makes sense if it is within the national consensus on arrangements for the next phase,” senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri told Reuters.
Israel has vowed to destroy Hamas and says it will not accept Palestinian Authority rule over Gaza for security reasons after the war that erupted after a Hamas attack on southern Israel on October 7 that killed about 1,200 Israelis and foreigners. , according to Israeli records.
According to Palestinian health authorities, nearly 30,000 Palestinians have been killed so far in the fighting in Gaza and nearly the entire population has been driven from their homes.
