RAMALLAH: Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas asked Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah on Tuesday to form a new government just two months after accepting his resignation in a dispute over his powers.

Hamdallah has accepted, suggesting the two men had patched up their differences, and will have five weeks to form a cabinet, Abbas spokesman Nabil Abu Rdeineh said.

The move shores up stability in Abbas’s administration in the Israeli-occupied West Bank as it returns to US-sponsored peace talks with Israel after a three-year hiatus.

But it also drives another nail in the coffin of efforts to overcome political divisions that have split the West Bank, where Abbas holds sway, and the Gaza Strip, which is run by the Palestinian group Hamas.

Hamas and Fatah agreed earlier this year to form a unity government made up of technocrats by Aug. 14, so Hamdallah’s new mandate further undermined the goal of reconciliation and a common strategy toward Israel.

Hamas, which rejects a negotiated solution to the conflict with Israel, branded Hamdallah’s original appointment as “illegal.”

Abbas asked Hamdallah, a political independent and linguistics professor, to form a government on June 2, but he handed in his resignation less than three weeks later due to disputes with his two deputies appointed by the president.

A senior Palestinian official told Reuters that Hamdallah would probably be granted full authority.