West Bank – Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is refusing to hold new general elections because he’s afraid that Hamas will win, Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar was quoted on Saturday as saying.
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Addressing Hamas supporters during a rally in the Gaza Strip’s Shati refugee camp, Zahar also accused the PA of working to prevent an intifada against Israel.
“Abbas is facing a real crisis,” Zahar said. “He is facing a political crisis after failing with his statehood bid at the United Nations and his inability to halt settlement construction in the West Bank and Jerusalem.”
Zahar said that Hamas was prepared to contest new elections, but “Abbas is afraid of holding them because he fears the results.”
He accused Abbas of seeking to disarm Hamas and other armed groups in the Gaza Strip. “Any weapons that are directed toward the fighters are corrupt weapons,” Zahar said. He also praised the recent terror attacks against Israel in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and the West Bank, adding that the use of vehicles to run over Israelis was a “Palestinian invention.”
Zahar’s remarks are a sign of the growing tensions between Hamas and Fatah despite the talk of “national unity” and “reconciliation” between the two parties.
The tensions reached their peak last week when Fatah accused Hamas of being behind a series of explosions that targeted 15 Fatah leaders in the Gaza Strip. Following the explosions, Fatah cancelled a rally it was planning to hold in Gaza City to mark the 10th anniversary of the death of Yasser Arafat.
Hamas, for its part, has accused the PA of hindering efforts to reconstruct the Gaza Strip in the aftermath of Operation Protective Edge. A Hamas leader said last Thursday that the PA leadership was seeking to lay its hands on half of the funds earmarked for the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip.
Khalil al-Haya, a senior Hamas official in the Gaza Strip, said that the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip still haven’t seen any of the money promised by a donor conference in Cairo last month. He and other Hamas leaders warned of an “explosion” if the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip does not take place.
Content is provided courtesy of the Jerusalem Post
hamas has already taken ove the PLO TERROR ORGANIZATION . abas is just hanging on a loose rope. israel better monitor to make surre there is no tunnels going on.
Everyone knows that Hamas is building tunnels again. What else are they going to do? It’s a terrorist group – they don’t govern or anything, they just kill. As for Abbas, Hamas is probably right. Abbas better watch his back.
Hah, democracy! He won’t run because he’s scared the majority of people don’t like him