GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — At a press conference in Gaza City on Sept. 23, eight Palestinian factions presented an initiative to end the Fatah-Hamas split in light of the current threats they see to the Palestinian cause. The current situation, they said, requires national unity to devise a consensus strategy to confront these challenges, among them Israeli policies to deny Palestinian independence and the so-called deal of the century developed by the Donald Trump administration that is believed to take a similar tack.
The eight factions — Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Palestinian People's Party, the Palestinian National Initiative, Palestine Democratic Union, the Popular Front-General Command and As-Saiqa — had on Sept. 20 sent copies of the initiative to the Egyptian government, the Arab League and to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas political bureau chief Ismail Haniyeh.
The initiative includes an implementation timetable and was framed as an extension of previous Egyptian efforts to mediate between the two main Palestinian movements. Speaking on behalf of the factions at the press conference, Aed Yaghi, head of the Palestinian National Initiative, announced that the reference points for ending the division are the reconciliation agreements from 2005, 2011 and 2017 and the 2017 recommendations for restructuring the Palestinian National Council (PNC) made by the Beirut preparatory committee, which included all the PLO factions, with Hamas and Islamic Jihad participating as observers.
Yaghi said that the first proposed step of the initiative is a meeting of the Committee for the Activation and Development of the Palestine Liberation Organization in October in Cairo, with Palestinian President and PLO Chairman Mahmoud Abbas in attendance. The committee was formed in accordance with the reconciliation agreement signed in Cairo in 2005 and consists of the general secretaries of the Palestinian factions, including Hamas and Islamic Jihad within the scope of the PLO's Temporary Leadership Framework.
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