Palestinian president blames Hamas for ongoing war in Gaza Strip

PA President Mahmoud Abbas gestures during a meeting in Ramallah, West Bank, August 18, 2020. Photo: REUTERS/Mohamad Torokman/Pool

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said Israel and the United States were responsible for an attack in the Gaza Strip on Saturday, but the Western-backed president also blamed Hamas for continuing the war in the Gaza Strip.

His comments signal growing tensions between Abbas’ Fatah faction and the Islamist Hamas group, which accused the Palestinian president of siding with Israel.

Israel said the attack was aimed at killing Hamas military chief Mohammad Deif and his aide. It remained unclear whether Deif or his deputy were killed.

“The Palestinian presidency condemns the massacre and holds the Israeli government and the US government, which supports the occupation and its crimes in every way, fully responsible,” Abbas said in a statement released by his office.

But Abbas, whose authority maintains limited self-rule in the West Bank, placed some of the blame on Hamas, whose October 7 attack in Israel that killed 1,200 people and abducted around 250 others sparked the nine-month war in Gaza.

“The President’s Office is aware that the Hamas movement, by evading national unity and providing free pretexts to the occupying state, is a partner that bears legal, moral and political responsibility for the continuation of Israel’s genocidal war in the Gaza Strip,” the statement said.

Hamas has ruled the Gaza Strip since it captured the coastal area from Abbas’ supporters in 2007.

Senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri said Reuters Abbas’ statement meant that the Palestinian Authority had decided to “stand in the same trench as the occupation.”

“With such an attitude, the resistance cannot be blackmailed or put under pressure,” said Abu Zuhri.

The efforts of Arab mediators led by Egypt have so far failed to resolve the power struggles between the two sides.

Another Hamas leader, Basem Naim, who took part in previous reconciliation talks with Abbas’ Fatah faction, said Abbas was to blame for the failure of a unity agreement.

Naim said Abbas’ comments made him and his authority “partners of the Zionist enemy and its crimes not only in Gaza but throughout Palestinian territory.”