Palestinian Prime Minister Rami Al-Hamdallah said on Tuesday, he has presented his resignation as well as his unity government to the country’s President Mahmoud Abbas, dealing a major setback to losing momentum in reconciliation efforts with Islamist Hamas rulers of Gaza.
According to news reported by Reuters, the Palestinian government will further continue to carry out its duties till the new government is once again formed, the government said in an official statement issued after a weekly cabinet meeting.
However, there were no immediate comments from the president Abbas, but his Fatah faction had recommended, at a meeting he chaired two days ago, that the government should be replaced. A Hamas official criticized prime minister’s move and called it as an attempt to exclude and marginalize the group from the Palestinian politics.
Hamdallah headed the national unity government formed in 2014 and led the West Bank-based Fatah’s reconciliation efforts with Hamas, which seized power in Gaza in 2007.
Both the two groups have signed a reconciliation agreement two years ago which set a plan in motion for the president’s Palestinian authority in order to resume governing in Gaza and undertake control of the coastal enclave’s crossing point into Israel and Egypt.
But however, the disputes on power-sharing and the disagreements on policy towards Israel have been obstructing implementation of the deal.