Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was hospitalized in the West Bank city of Ramallah and was unable to attend the May 18 Organization of Islamic Cooperation summit in Istanbul. The host, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, was thus obliged to tell Palestinian Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah what he had planned to tell Abbas: that the Palestinian Authority (PA) must take an active part in saving the Gaza Strip.

Erdogan is considered a patron of Hamas. He has in the past hosted a Hamas branch office established in Istanbul by the deputy head of its political bureau, Saleh al-Arouri. The office was shut down in keeping with Israel’s demands as part of an Israeli-Turkish reconciliation deal signed in June 2016. Arouri moved his activities to Beirut, but a source in the PA told Al-Monitor that he often travels to Istanbul, stopping off there on the way to various destinations, especially to Tehran.

Ismail Haniyeh, the head of Hamas’ political bureau, delivered a sermon May 18 in a Gaza mosque that attests to the importance his group attaches to reconciliation with the PA. “This is the most appropriate time for reconciliation among all the Palestinian factions, and we are ready to take serious steps,” he said. Haniyeh did not say whether these steps include a willingness to disarm, in accordance with the demand by Fatah, the main component of the PA, as a prerequisite for reconciliation.

Shortly after he spoke, representatives of more than 40 Muslim states met for the extraordinary session of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation convened by Turkey. It was organized hurriedly, ostensibly to convey Muslim unity from Istanbul in the face of the May 14 US Embassy move to Jerusalem. In fact, the conference was intended to position Erdogan as the leader of the Muslim world at the expense of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.