Alwaght- Hamas resistance movement has criticized Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas for appointing Mohammed Mustafa as new prime minister, calling the move a unilateral decision, according to Aljazeera.
The movement, which governs the Gaza Strip, said the decision was taken without consulting it despite recently taking part in a meeting in Moscow also attended by Abbas’s Fatah movement to end long-time divisions between the two Palestinian factions.
"We express our rejection of continuing this approach that has inflicted and continues to inflict harm on our people and our national cause,” Aljazeera cited Hamas statement as saying.
“Making individual decisions and engaging in superficial and empty steps such as forming a new government without national consensus only reinforces a policy of unilateralism and deepens division.”
It added that at a time of war with Israel, Palestinians needed a unified leadership preparing for free democratic elections involving all components of their society.
Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh announced his resignation on February 26 in protest to genocide in Gaza and as Abbas, under the US pressures, decided to entertain plans proposed to govern Gaza post-war.
“The decision to resign came in light of the unprecedented escalation in the West Bank and Jerusalem and the war, genocide and starvation in the Gaza Strip,” said Shtayyeh.
Shtayyeh’s comments came as US pressure grew on Abbas to shake up the Palestinian Authority and begin work on a political structure that can govern a Palestinian state following the war.
The new PM is a Western-educatrd politician and economist and appeares to have been picked to implement the reforms the US is demanding in the Palestinian Authority to sideline Hamas in Gaza.
He is a longtime advisor to Abbas and served as an economic advisor also in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. He is hardly to manage to do his mission since his links to Abbas harm his reputation as the latter is deeply unpopular among Palestinians, many of whom view the Palestinian Authority as little more than a subcontractor of the Israeli occupation because it cooperates with Israel on security matters.
