STRASBOURG: Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said here he remains committed to a national reconciliation with Hamas and insists he will not allow the Palestine people to remain divided.
Abbas said, “our doors are still open,” to a unity government with Hamas.
He said such a union would allow Hamas to be part of an effective cease-fire with Israel, but added that “Hamas is capable of respecting a period of calm, whether in government or not.”
He also insisted that Israel should stop undermining his government and be held accountable for its actions during the war in Gaza.
The Palestinian president said the Gaza attacks were war crimes for which Israeli officials should be held accountable, but he insisted he would continue seeking a lasting peace with Israel.
Abbas — who is on a European tour seeking support for a unity government — gave a speech at EU Parliament detailing the suffering of civilians during Israel’s three-week offensive in Gaza.
He said he would push for a war crimes investigation into the Israeli attacks, which ended on Jan. 18. When he said he held Israel’s leaders accountable, he was applauded by European lawmakers.
“People who committed those crimes have to be held responsible so that these crimes cannot be repeated,” he told reporters after the speech. “We do not want to continue to be the enemies of Israel. We are stretching out our hands for peace with Israel. But what was done is regretfully crimes of war.”
He also denounced Hamas’ rocket attacks from Gaza into Israel, which triggered the Israeli offensive. “I have condemned such rocket attacks for years, and I still condemn them,” he said. “They do not go in the direction of peace.”
But Abbas said there was no comparison between the Israeli offensive and rocket attacks such as the one Tuesday morning that hit Israel’s coastal city of Ashkelon, about 10 miles north of Gaza. Vehicles and buildings were damaged, but no one in the 122,000-population city was hurt.
Meanwhile, Abbas’ government announced yesterday a $600 million reconstruction program for the war-battered Gaza Strip.
Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, who heads Abbas’ West Bank-based government, said the program would cover all Palestinian houses destroyed or damaged during Israel’s 22-day military offensive in the Hamas-ruled enclave.
While Abbas’ government would take the lead in planning the rebuilding, it has scant presence on the ground in the Gaza Strip, meaning reconstruction work would initially have to be done by UN agencies and contractors, Western diplomats said.
“The amount of the project is $600 million. Most of it will come from donors,” Fayyad said in a speech in the West Bank city of Ramallah. He said further details would be announced later.
Also, Egypt is to host an international conference on March 2 on Gaza reconstruction, in coordination with the Palestinian Authority.
