Abbas To Lead Unity Cabinet
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will head a Fatah-Hamas unity caretaker cabinet, Abbas and Hamas chief Khaled Meshal said in a joint announcement on Monday, in a move that could pave for a long-sought-after reconciliation between the rival factions.
“We are serious, both Fatah and Hamas, in healing the wounds and ending the chapter of division and reinforcing and accomplishing reconciliation,” Meshal said in remarks televised live by Al Jazeera from Qatar.
He said the Palestinians wanted to accomplish unity and move forward “to resist the enemy [Israel] and achieve our national goal.”
Abbas, head of the secular Fatah organization, promised that this effort will be implemented in the shortest time possible”.
The Doha Agreement stipulates that the unity caretaker government will be composed of non-affiliated technocrats, and its mission will be to start Gaza’s rehabilitation and to prepare for a general Palestinian election for both president and parliament.
A second meeting between the two Palestinian leaders has been set to February 18 in Cairo, where Abbas and Meshal will be expected to set the date for the upcoming vote.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
