Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas stated that Israel and the United States are responsible for the attack on the Al-Mawasi area in the Gaza Strip on Saturday, which resulted in dozens of deaths. However, he also placed some responsibility on Hamas for the ongoing war in the sector.
Abbas’s comments point to escalating tensions between the Fatah movement, which he leads, and Hamas, which has accused the Palestinian president of siding with Israel.
Israel claimed that the Al-Mawasi attack was aimed at killing Mohammed Deif, the military commander of Hamas, and his assistant. Hamas has denied Deif’s death. The attack killed at least 90 Palestinians and injured 300 others, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
In a statement released by his office, Abbas said, “The Palestinian presidency condemns this massacre and holds the Israeli government fully responsible for it, as well as the American administration, which provides all kinds of support for the occupation and its crimes.”
However, Abbas also attributed some responsibility to Hamas. The Palestinian presidency’s statement noted, “The presidency considers Hamas, with its evasion of national unity and providing free excuses for the occupation state, a partner in bearing the legal, moral, and political responsibility for the continued Israeli genocidal war in the Gaza Strip, causing suffering, destruction, and the killing of our people.”
Hamas has been governing the Gaza Strip since seizing control in 2007.
Sami Abu Zuhri, a senior official in Hamas, told Reuters, “These statements mean that the Authority has chosen to be in the trench of the occupation and contribute to the pressures exerted against the resistance,” as he put it. He added, “This behavior will not succeed in extorting the resistance or pressuring it.”
Mediation efforts have so far failed to achieve reconciliation between the two sides.
Basem Naim, a Hamas leader who participated in previous reconciliation talks with Fatah, said that Abbas is responsible for the failure to reach a unity agreement.
Naim stated that Abbas’s comments “transform the authority and its presidency into a partner with the occupation in the crimes committed by the Zionist enemy against our people not only in Gaza but in all Palestinian territories,” as he expressed it.
