RAMALLAH: Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas held a rare meeting with rival factions on Thursday as they sought to present a united front over Israel and the UAE’s deal to normalise ties.
The meeting was held through videoconference between Ramallah in the West Bank and Beirut, where Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh and Islamic Jihad Secretary General Ziyad Al Nakhalah attended.
“Our meeting comes at a very dangerous stage, in which our national cause faces various plots and dangers,” Abbas said on Thursday. “In order to stand together in the trench of confrontation and peaceful popular resistance to the occupation, I invite you here to agree on the formation of a national leadership.”
Speaking from the fortified Palestinian Embassy in Beirut, Haniyeh also said it was important to have a unified strategy.
Rare meeting
It is rare for Islamist Hamas and Abbas’ secular Fatah faction of the Palestine Liberation Organisation to have such high-level contacts after years of in-fighting.
Palestinians were dismayed by the UAE’s ‘normalisation’ accord with Israel, seeing it as a betrayal likely to weaken a long-standing pan-Arab position that calls for Israel to withdraw from occupied territory. The deal was brokered by US President Donald Trump.
Abbas has refused to deal with Trump’s administration for more than two years, accusing it of pro-Israel bias, and rejected Trump’s Mideast plan, unveiled in January.