Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas said Palestinians will soon dissolve the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC), the PA parliament, without giving further information.
Abbas made the remark Saturday evening at the International Conference on “Empowering the Private Sector role in Governance and Anti-Corruption Efforts," which was held at PA presidential headquarters in Ramallah.
He thanked Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud for reaffirming on Sunday, during his speech at the opening session of the 39th GCC summit, Saudi Arabia’s unwavering position in supporting the Palestinian cause.
He also expressed deep appreciation and respect for the Kingdom’s stance, adding that Saudi Arabia, under the leadership of King Salman, has remained firm in its support of his country.
King Salman, for his part, said the Palestinian cause is at the forefront of the GCC concerns, calling on the international community to take the required measures to protect the Palestinians from Israel's aggression.
“In a legal manner, we will dissolve the Palestinian Legislative Council, and this will happen soon,” Abbas said.
The issue of dissolving the PLC was discussed at the latest meeting of the Palestinian Central Council (PCC) end of October, as one of the steps to be taken by the PA against Hamas since they did not reach reconciliation.
Fatah movement called for dissolving the Hamas-controlled council, which has been stalled since 2007 after the movement seized control of the Gaza Strip and called for new elections.
Abbas said Hamas must hand over everything to the Palestinian government or bear everything.
He stressed that decisions were taken by the PCC against Hamas in parallel with a number of decisions related to Palestinian-Israeli and Palestinian-American ties.
He also complained that he had signed with Hamas more than 20 agreements in 10 years, none of which had been implemented by the movement.
As for the relationship with Israel, “Israelis have violated all the agreements,” Abbas said, adding that “we have the decisions issued by the PCC, which stated that we must stop security coordination and relations because Israel continues to violate the agreements.”
“We informed them that we want to amend Paris agreement or cancel it, and they told us they will give an answer in this regard after two days. Two days later, the Israeli defense minister resigned, and now we don’t know whom we should contact.”
Notably, this October, Hamas and Fatah signed a landmark reconciliation agreement in Cairo, aimed at ending 10 years of bitter division.
If it holds, the agreement will allow the Fatah-led Ramallah government to assume political and administrative responsibility for Gaza Strip.
