GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — Palestinian factions were reluctant to accept a call by the Hamas-led Gaza government to participate in administering the Gaza Strip. The call was issued by Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh during a speech he gave at the opening of the National Program for the Performance Indicators of Charities and Civic Bodies in Gaza City on Wednesday, Aug. 21.

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) initially welcomed this invitation; it soon amended its stance by adding that the “invitation required a political framework,” which government spokesman Ihab al-Ghossein described to Al-Monitor as “backtracking on its position.”

Islamic Jihad, on the other hand, announced that it was studying the matter. One of its leading figures, Khaled al-Batsh, affirmed to Al-Monitor that until now the invitation did not go beyond media statements, and that they had not yet received any official word about participating in the administration of Gaza. “We refuse to participate in any new government in the absence of national reconciliation and the restructuring of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, as stipulated by the Cairo Agreement of May 2011.”

During the speech, Haniyeh had called for expanded participation in the administration of the Gaza Strip until reconciliation was achieved and a national unity government formed, telling reporters: “Our call for expanded participation and the shouldering of responsibilities is engendered by our hopeful glance towards the future, and not by any anticipation of things to come,” in an allusion to the fall of the Brotherhood’s rule in Egypt.