FOLLOWING discussions in Moscow, a senior Hamas official asked Russia to exert pressure on Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to negotiate the formation of a national unity administration for post-war Gaza.
A Hamas politburo member, Mousa Abu Marzouk, met with Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov in Moscow.
“We discussed issues related to Palestinian national unity and the creation of a government that should govern the Gaza Strip after the war,” Marzouk said, according to RIA.
According to Marzouk, Hamas has requested Russia to push Abbas, who is attending the BRICS conference in Kazan, to begin negotiations on a unity administration, RIA said.
Abbas is the head of the Palestinian Authority (PA), which governs the occupied Palestinian territory.
The PA was established three decades ago under the interim peace deal known as the Oslo Accords and has limited control over areas of the occupied West Bank, which Palestinians aspire to be the foundation of a future independent state.
The Palestinian Authority, governed by Abbas’ Fatah political movement, has long had tense relations with Hamas, which governs Gaza, and the two sides fought a brief war before Fatah was ousted from the area in 2007.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has expressed significant hostility to the Palestinian Authority’s involvement in Gaza governance.