(Gaza) Thousands of Palestinians took part on Saturday in one of the biggest celebrations in years of President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah movement in the Hamas-controlled enclave of the Gaza Strip.
Fatah and Hamas, the two main Palestinian formations, have been at odds since the 2006 elections, won by Hamas, but never recognized by either Fatah or the international community.
The following year, bloody clashes opposed the two camps, leading to the birth of two separate political systems: on the one hand the Palestinian Authority sitting in the West Bank occupied by Israel since 1967 where 2.8 million Palestinians live, the other Gaza and its 2.3 million inhabitants ruled by Hamas and under strict Israeli blockade.
PHOTO MOHAMMED SALEM, REUTERS
Palestinians were present in their thousands to celebrate the Fatah movement in Gaza.
Ahmed Helles, who leads Fatah in the Gaza Strip, seized the opportunity of the 58e anniversary of the founding of the movement to call for reconciliation.
About the new Israeli government of Binyamin Netanyahu, the most right-wing in the history of Israel, he affirmed that “this government will leave like other racist governments before it, and our people will remain”.
He spoke in front of a crowd displaying yellow Fatah flags and chanting slogans in favor of Mahmoud Abbas.
“The time has come to achieve national reconciliation,” he added.
Monther Al-Hayek, a Fatah spokesman, told AFP the importance of achieving “national unity to confront Netanyahu’s extremist government.” »
Algerian President Abdelmajid Tebboune launched an initiative at the end of 2021 to reconcile Fatah and Hamas, and managed in July to bring together President Abbas and Hamas leader Ismaïl Haniyeh in Algiers, a meeting described as “historic”.
But this first public meeting in more than five years did not lead to a broader reconciliation: in October, the two movements signed a reconciliation agreement in Algiers, Mr. Abbas was not present and the agreement did not has not been implemented.