Latest Developments from the PA: Abbas Calls for Committee of Unity for All PA Parties, Islamic Jihad Sending Delegation to Cairo

Jerusalem, 26 October, 2021 (TPS) -- Sources in the Fatah, which heads the PA government, told TPS that a committee is going to be established which will include all Palestinian factions, including Hamas and Islamic Jihad. The committee will conduct a comprehensive national dialogue, in accordance with a call made by PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas to do so.

The committee is intended to complete a previous round of talks that began on the eve of the “Guardians of the Walls” operation conducted by Israel against Hamas in Gaza last May. It will also take up the issue of the cancellation of elections in the PA Palestinian and will try to end divisions between the parties.

On Sunday, during a meeting of the PLO Executive Committee and the Fatah Central Committee, Abu Mazen instructed that negotiations between the different PLO factions be conducted in preparation for a national dialogue.

A senior Fatah official told TPS, “Abu Mazen [Mahmoud Abbas] is not giving up on a unity government with Hamas, even though messages from the United States reject this and call on him to instead form a government of experts [on matters of running a society].”

As for the terrorist group Islamic Jihad, a delegation, led by its Secretary General Ziad al-Nahla, will leave for Cairo in the coming days. The delegation is being sent at the invitation of the Egyptian government. It will hold meetings with senior Egyptian intelligence officials.

The trip was supposed to take place earlier in the year but was postponed due to a hunger strike conducted by a number of terrorists from the Islamic jihad held prisoner in Israel.

Meanwhile, a source in Gaza told TPS that Hamas has been curbing Islamic Jihad activities in the Gaza Strip in recent weeks. This is being done under an Egyptian directive to allow for progress in the negotiations with Israel on the issue of rehabilitating the Gaza Strip and the release of prisoners.

And there has been a response in the PA to the move made by Israel’s Defense Minister Benny Gantz earlier this week to ban six organizations because of their connections to the terrorist organizations the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

The PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas invited representatives of the six organizations to meet with him at his office. The meeting dealt with the establishment of a coordination committee of representatives from both the PA and NGOs which will be tasked with monitoring this issue.

Shawan Jabarin is the director of the Alakhak organization, one of the newly banned groups. After attending the meeting, Jabarin expressed his appreciation for the words of support that his organization received from the PA chairman.

Abbas was said to have warned of the dangers and consequences of Israel’s decision and expressed his support for the organizations’ right to act.

PA officials have expressed satisfaction with the Popular Front because the group has taken a sharply critical position against the Palestinian leadership, especially since the death of Nizar Banat while under interrogation by PA security officials.