For the first time, the president of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), Mahmoud Abbas, declares himself willing to "assume responsibilities in Gaza as part of a global political solution for the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza," as announced by the Palestinian leader this Friday.
The ongoing conflict between Hamas, which has ruled the Gaza Strip since 2006, and Israel has reignited the debate over governing Gaza. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently pointed to a transitional and indefinite period of Israel's responsibility for the Strip. “I believe that Israel will have, for an indefinite period, overall responsibility for security, because we have seen what happens when we do not have it,” he said, but when asked who will govern Gaza after the war, he answered “those who do not.” "They want to follow the path of Hamas." The ANP, openly against Hamas, could be an option.
Abas's announcement comes after he had already committed to getting involved in the political resolution of the conflict, following a meeting with the US Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, last Sunday.
Israel has already repeated on numerous occasions that the objective of its military operations in Gaza is to defeat Hamas, but the difficulty will be to end the political movement that goes beyond the military branch that Israel seeks to eliminate. Any organization that takes responsibility for Gaza in the future will have to confront sectors of the population that support Hamas.
The ANP, led by Mahmoud Abbas, was created in 1994 as a result of the Oslo Accords, the last attempt to seek a long-term peaceful resolution to the conflict, to govern the Gaza Strip and part of the West Bank. But in 2007 Hamas acceded to the government of the Strip and the control of the Palestinian Authority was limited to the West Bank territories, seeing its legitimacy diminished. Since then, allegations of corruption, his failure to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, his 87-year tenure in power have further called Abbas's rule into question.
Until now, the Palestinian Authority ruled out taking charge of Gaza. For this reason, Abas's announcement, in which he declares himself willing to resume responsibility for the Strip, turns the political scenario that arises after the end of the conflict on its head.
