GAZA CITY, 13 August 2006 — Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas yesterday dismissed concerns raised by the Hamas prime minister over the future of the Palestinian Authority, and called for the creation of a national unity government.
“At the first possible opportunity we must strive to set up a government of national unity,” Abbas told reporters in Jordan when asked to comment about remarks made by Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh.
Haniyeh on Wednesday cast doubt over the future of the Palestinian Authority’s ability to operate amid a more than six-week-old Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip.
“The question we have to ask ourselves is the following: Can the Palestinian Authority continue to operate and function in these circumstances,” Haniyeh said.
But Abbas said that any talk about dissolving the Palestinian Authority “is not proper.”
“We have a Palestinian agreement called the ‘national accord’ which stipulates a national unity government and this is a firm principle,” Abbas said. Creation of a Palestinian national unity government has been delayed by the Israeli offensive on Gaza and the situation in Lebanon, he said.
Meanwhile, the Israeli Army said yesterday it had destroyed a tunnel used by Palestinian fighters in the southern Gaza Strip to smuggle in weapons from Egypt.
“An engineering force discovered a tunnel in the Dahaniya area in southern Gaza, 180 meters long and eight meters deep (600 by 26 feet), which was used to transfer weapons from Egypt into Gaza,” an army spokeswoman said. Palestinian security sources could only confirm that Israeli tanks and bulldozers carried out an incursion into the area.
— With input from agencies
