PALESTINIAN PM SHTAYYEH SENDS RESIGNATION OF HIS GOVERNMENT TO PRESIDENT OVER GAZA ‘GENOCIDE’

Mon 26 February 2024:

President Mahmoud Abbas has received the resignation of the Palestinian cabinet, according to a statement made by Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh on Monday.

“The upcoming stage requires new governmental and political arrangements that take into account the developments in the Gaza Strip,” Shtayyeh said during a Cabinet session in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah.

“I see that the next stage and its challenges require new governmental and political arrangements that take into account the new reality in Gaza and the need for a Palestinian-Palestinian consensus based on Palestinian unity and the extension of unity of authority over the land of Palestine,” he said.

Israel has launched a deadly offensive on the Gaza Strip since an Oct. 7 cross-border incursion by the Palestinian group Hamas.

The Israeli war on Gaza has pushed 85% of the territory’s population into internal displacement amid acute shortages of food, clean water and medicine, while 60% of the enclave’s infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed, according to the UN.

Shtayyeh’s comments come as US pressure grows on Abbas to shake up the PA and begin work on a political structure that can govern a Palestinian state following the war.

However, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has on numerous occasions rejected calls for the PA under Abbas to take control of a Palestinian state and govern Gaza.

Last week, Israeli lawmakers backed Netanyahu’s rejection of any “unilateral” recognition of a Palestinian state.

“The Knesset came together in an overwhelming majority against the attempt to impose on us the establishment of a Palestinian state, which would not only fail to bring peace but would endanger the state of Israel,” said Netanyahu.

But the Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs slammed the vote and accused Israel of holding the rights of Palestinians hostage due to the occupation of Palestinian territories.

“The ministry reaffirms that the State of Palestine’s full membership in the United Nations and its recognition by other nations does not require permission from Netanyahu,” it said in a statement.

Since the signing of the Oslo Accords in the early 1990s, little progress has been made towards achieving a two-state solution.

“Disappointed”

The far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich on Thursday announced plans to build more than 3,300 new homes in response to a shooting that killed one Israeli civilian.

Smotrich said the decision would begin an approval process for 300 new homes in the Kedar settlement and 2,350 in Maale Adumim, where the attack occurred.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he was “disappointed” to hear of the Israeli announcement of the new settlements.

“It’s been longstanding US policy under Republican and Democratic administrations alike that new settlements are counter-productive to reaching an enduring peace,” he said in Buenos Aires.

“They’re also inconsistent with international law. Our administration maintains a firm opposition to settlement expansion and in our judgement this only weakens, it doesn’t strengthen, Israel’s security.”

Israel stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice. An interim ruling in January ordered Tel Aviv to stop genocidal acts and take measures to guarantee that humanitarian assistance is provided to civilians in Gaza.

Hostilities have continued unabated, however, and aid deliveries remain woefully insufficient to address the humanitarian catastrophe.

Violence in the occupied West Bank has escalated significantly after the October 7 Hamas attack on southern Israel that killed 1,139 people. Israel’s retaliatory bombardments on Gaza have killed more than 29,000 Palestinian civilians, according to the strip’s Ministry of Health.

Palestinian health officials also say at least 401 people have been killed by Israeli fire in the occupied West Bank during the same period.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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