Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas urged Hamas to release the hostages it is holding and hand over its weapons to the PA, stressing that the terror group “will not rule the Gaza Strip” after the war there ends.
In a meeting in Amman on Sunday with British former prime minister Tony Blair, Abbas also called for the release of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails, an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, and unhindered entry of humanitarian aid to the Strip, according to the PA’s official news agency WAFA.
Abbas also called for the PA to be given control of the enclave, a notion long rejected by Israel. He further stressed the need to implement a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict based on the Arab Peace Initiative and called for an international peace conference to be held in New York, the report said.
Though Abbas has in the past called for the hostages to be released, an end to the war, and for the PA to takeover governing Gaza, it was only last month that, for the first time, he condemned the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led invasion of southern Israel during which the hostages were abducted. The attack, which killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, triggered the ongoing war.
At the time, Abbas also said that Hamas must not be permitted to rule Gaza and should hand over its weapons to the Palestinian Security Services.
Terror groups in the Gaza Strip are holding 50 hostages, including 49 of the 251 abducted by Hamas-led terrorists on October 7, 2023. They include the bodies of at least 28 confirmed dead by the IDF. Twenty are believed to be alive, and there are grave concerns for the well-being of two others, Israeli officials have said. Hamas is also holding the body of an IDF soldier killed in Gaza in 2014.
Hamas seized control of Gaza from the PA in 2007 during a bloody coup. The terror group and Abba’s Fatah secularist party, which dominates the West Bank-based PA, have remained at odds ever since.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has vowed to vanquish Hamas, has thus far ruled out any role for the PA in Gaza, but failed to advance any alternative amid pressure from his far-right partners, who want to establish settlements in the Strip.
The PA is largely seen as ineffectual and corrupt. It has not held general elections since 2006, and presidential elections since 2005.
Blair left office in 2007, then became an envoy for the Middle East Quartet — the United Nations, the United States, the European Union, and Russia — set up in 2002 to mediate peace between Israel and the Palestinians.
He established the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, a non-profit organization, in 2016.
In January 2024, the institute denied as “a lie” a Hebrew media report linking him to talks for the resettlement of Palestinians from Gaza to other countries.
US President Donald Trump has touted a highly disputed initiative to relocate Palestinians out of the coastal enclave to other countries. Netanyahu has openly backed the plan, which has been flatly rejected by Palestinians.
Agencies contributed to this report.