The Palestinian Authority is ready to govern the Gaza Strip in the wake of Israel’s ceasefire agreement with Hamas, PA chief Mahmoud Abbas said on Friday.
“The Palestinian government, under President Abbas’ directives, has completed all preparations to assume full responsibility in Gaza,” including the return of displaced Gazans, providing basic services, crossings management and reconstruction of the war-torn Strip, the Turkish newspaper Daily Sabah quoted Abbas as saying.
Israel withdrew in full from the Gaza Strip in 2005 as part of a unilateral disengagement, forcibly evacuating some 8,000 Jewish residents and all military posts in the process.
Hamas seized power in the Strip in June 2007 by ousting the PA in a weeklong civil war and won the subsequent election in the territory.
With the ceasefire set to take effect on Sunday morning, 33 abductees are expected to return in weekly groups in exchange for up to 1,904 Palestinian terrorists in the first stage of the truce agreement spanning 42 days.
And while it is unclear whether the war will resume following the first and second stages—if the ceasefire makes it that far—the “day after” in the Gaza Strip has been discussed in diplomatic circles for months.
On Tuesday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken accused Israel of systematically undermining the PA, which he said should govern a unified Gaza Strip, in addition to Judea and Samaria, after Israel’s war against Hamas terrorists concludes.
Presenting his plans for the “day after” the war at the Atlantic Council in Washington, the Biden administration’s top diplomat reiterated that the P.A. and international partners should “run an interim administration with responsibility for key civil sectors in Gaza, like banking, water, energy, health, civil coordination with Israel.”
In December, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that there is no way the Palestinian Authority would be allowed to rule the Gaza Strip in a “post-Hamas” world, speaking during a stormy discussion in the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.
“Oslo was the mother of all sins. The difference between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority is only that Hamas wants to destroy us here and now, and the PA wants to do it in stages,” the prime minister said.
“We cooperate with them the PA against Hamas when it serves their interest and ours up to a certain limit. We decided a few months ago that we don’t want them to collapse so that Hamas does not rise up in Judea and Samaria as well,” he added.