The Palestinian Central Council is due to be held on Oct. 28 amid harsh circumstances, challenges, and conspiracies that the Palestinian people are bravely facing, while taking part in the Great March of Return despite the Israeli crackdown on the popular protests which left (5) Palestinians killed in Gaza and one in the West Bank yesterday.

The Central Council’s meeting will be held amid the ongoing Israeli aggression on Gaza and the absence of a national consensus after the announcement of some prominent Palestinians factions that that they will not attend the meeting. Meanwhile, the Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas insists on monopolising the national decisions, isolating the other factions, and deepening the internal division, as well as utilizing the national bodies, whose members were selected according to Abbas’ individual standards, as a tool to widen the internal rift.

Abbas, who had set the timing, place, and agenda of the Central Council’s meeting, is determined to hold this unilateral assembly, turning a blind eye to the 2005 and 2011 agreements and outcomes of the 2017 Preparatory Committee in Beirut, which stipulate that unified national council should be formed, legitimacy of the central bodies and institutions should be renewed and activated by consensus.

The PA President is poised to hold the Central Council’s summit while neglecting the decisions made in the 2015 and 2018 Central Council meetings to freeze recognition of the Israeli ooccupation and end the security collaboration with it until it recognises Palestine.

Moreover, the recommendations of the May 2018 Central Council’s meeting calling for ending the PA’s sanctions on Gaza have not been implemented yet.   

In light of the aforementioned facts, the Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas states the following:

First: Hamas hails the Palestinian people in Jerusalem, the West Bank, Gaza, the 1948 occupied territories, and diaspora for fighting off the U.S. and Israeli schemes targeting the Palestinian cause, above all the ‘Deal of the Century’, and for embracing the option of resistance to end the occupation.

Second: Hamas confirms that the upcoming Central Council’s meeting, to be held on Oct. 28, is illegitimate, and the movement rejects all decisions made in this summit that contradict the Palestinian national interests.  

Third: Hamas hails all factions and figures who refuse to provide a cover for the outcomes of Central Council’s meeting, which may threaten the national unity and deepen the internal rift.

Fourth: The resistance movement calls on Fatah to reconsider its decision to hold the Central Council’s meeting at this time and with the current structure.

Fifth: Hamas holds all participants in the Central Council’s meeting responsible for its negative ramifications and decisions.

Sixth: We reiterate the necessity to restructure the Palestinian national bodies, the foremost among them is the Palestinian Liberation Organisation, as per the agreements signed by all factions and on the basis of national partnership and a clear strategy that upholds the Palestinians’ rights and fulfils their demands.

Seventh: Hamas reaffirms the importance of national unity and urges the factions to hold a national summit to discuss the mechanisms of re-enforcing the 2011 Cairo agreement and forming a national consensus government to supervise the presidential and legislative elections and to re-structure the Palestinian National Council.     

The Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas

Saturday, 27 October 2018