Palestinian Authority is ready to rule Gaza once again, Abbas says

The Palestinian Authority wants an end to hostilities in Gaza, a flow of aid, and it says it is ready to take responsibility there if its conditions are met.

“The authority is ready to assume its responsibilities in Gaza, the West Bank and Jerusalem as a single Palestinian state,” President Mahmoud Abbas told an Egyptian television channel in his first interview since the Israel-Gaza war began on October 7.

“We want a comprehensive halt to the fighting, the opening of the borders for humanitarian aid, and the prevention of forced displacement of Palestinians outside their homeland,” he said.

Mr Abbas is leader of the Fatah party, the dominant faction in the authority that governs parts of the occupied West Bank, while its rival Hamas has ruled Gaza since it seized power there in 2007.

Mr Abbas’s latest statements come as Egypt published a peace proposal to all parties that addresses the “day-after”, when Israel ends its war in Gaza.

Egyptian sources told Reuters that Hamas and fellow Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad, which have been holding separate talks with Egyptian mediators in Cairo, have so far rejected offering any concessions beyond the release of more Israeli hostages taken in October.

Egypt’s proposed vision, rather than a concrete plan, also backed by Qatari mediators, would involve a ceasefire in exchange for the release of more hostages, and lead to a broader agreement involving a permanent ceasefire and an overhaul of leadership in Gaza.

Egypt proposed elections while offering assurances to Hamas that its members would not be pursued or prosecuted, but the group rejected any concessions other than hostage releases, the sources said.

More than 100 hostages are still believed to be held in Gaza.

Addressing the authority’s role in Gaza, Mr Abbas said Fatah had never left there.

“We don’t need to return to Gaza, we are there,” he told Lamis Elhadidy on the Egyptian ON television channel.

“However, we remain here [the West Bank] and we are also in Gaza despite Hamas’s coup in 2007. We didn’t change our position on Gaza,” he said.

“Our institutions, our cadres, our youth are still in Gaza and we continue to pay Gaza – its people, its schools, its institutions, its water, its electricity – $140 million each month.”

With the destruction of infrastructure and most of the population forced out of their houses, Mr Abbas said Israel’s war in Gaza was worse than the Nakba, or the “catastrophe”, in which Palestinians were driven from their lands during Israel’s creation in 1948.

“Gaza has been destroyed six times before, but this time has never happened in this way. This is bigger than a Nakba,” he said.