ALGIERS/GAZA: Rival Palestinian factions signed an agreement in Algiers on Thursday aimed at resolving 15 years of discord by holding elections within a year after months of talks mediated by Algeria.
The deal aims to end a rift between President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah movement and Hamas that has split Palestinian governance in the Gaza Strip from the West Bank and hindered Palestinian ambitions of statehood.
However, there was skepticism back home that the pledge to hold presidential and legislative elections would deliver any concrete changes after previous unmet promises. The delegations did not agree to form a unity government.
The division between Palestinian factions, triggered after Hamas won a legislative election in 2006, has prevented any further elections since then.
The Islamist group, which opposes peace with Israel, seized control of the Gaza Strip in 2007 while Abbas’ Western-backed Palestinian Authority stayed dominant in the West Bank.
Speaking after the signing ceremony, senior Fatah official Azzam Al-Ahmad vowed the agreement “will be implemented and will not remain a dead letter,” describing the years of division as a “cancer.”
Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh said the agreement marked “a happy day for the Palestinians and a day of sorrow to the (Israeli) occupation.”
The deal also recognized the Palestine Liberation Organization, of which Abbas is the head, as the sole representative of the Palestinian people, and called for elections to its national council within a year.
The leaders of 14 factions, including Fatah and Hamas, held two days of talks in the run-up to an Arab summit in Algiers next month after months of Algerian mediation.
Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune hailed the agreement as historic.
Tebboune wants to use next month’s Arab League summit — the first since the COVID-19 pandemic — to cement his country’s place as a regional heavyweight. It has held talks for months with Palestinian factions for a deal.
Renewed demand for Algerian oil and gas, and the end of mass street protests that rocked the country from 2019-20, have bolstered its confidence on the international stage.
However, its ongoing dispute with neighboring Morocco, which has affected both countries’ relations with major European states, has overshadowed the run-up to the summit.
Palestinian rivals agree to hold elections but doubts persist
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Palestinian rivals agree to hold elections but doubts persist
- The deal aims to end a rift between President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah movement and Hamas
- The delegations did not agree to form a unity government
Syrian military tells civilians to evacuate contested area east of Aleppo amid rising tensions
- Syria’s military has announced it will open a “humanitarian corridor” for civilians to evacuate from an area in Aleppo province
- This follows several days of intense clashes between government forces and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces
DAMASCUS: Syria’s military said it would open a corridor Thursday for civilians to evacuate an area of Aleppo province that has seen a military buildup following intense clashes between government and Kurdish-led forces in Aleppo city.
The army’s announcement late Wednesday — which said civilians would be able to evacuate through the “humanitarian corridor” from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thursday — appeared to signal plans for an offensive in the towns of Deir Hafer and Maskana and surrounding areas, about 60 kilometers (40 miles) east of Aleppo city.
The military called on the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces and other armed groups to withdraw to the other side of the the Euphrates River, to the east of the contested zone.
Syrian government troops have already sent troop reinforcements to the area after accusing the SDF of building up its own forces there, which the SDF denied. There have been limited exchanges of fire between the two sides, and the SDF has said that Turkish drones carried out strikes there.
The government has accused the SDF of launching drone strikes in Aleppo city, including one that hit the Aleppo governorate building on Saturday shortly after two Cabinet ministers and a local official held a news conference there.
The tensions in the Deir Hafer area come after several days of intense clashes last week in Aleppo city that ended with the evacuation of Kurdish fighters and government forces taking control of three contested neighborhoods. The fighting killed at least 23 people, wounded dozens more, and displaced tens of thousands.
The fighting broke out as negotiations have stalled between Damascus and the SDF, which controls large swaths of northeast Syria, over an agreement to integrate their forces and for the central government to take control of institutions including border crossings and oil fields in the northeast.
Some of the factions that make up the new Syrian army, which was formed after the fall of former President Bashar Assad in a rebel offensive in December 2024, were previously Turkiye-backed insurgent groups that have a long history of clashing with Kurdish forces.
The SDF for years has been the main US partner in Syria in fighting against the Daesh group, but Turkiye considers the SDF a terrorist organization because of its association with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, which has waged a long-running insurgency in Turkiye. A peace process is now underway.
Despite the long-running US support for the SDF, the Trump administration has also developed close ties with the government of interim Syrian President Ahmad Al-Sharaa and has pushed the Kurds to implement the integration deal. Washington has so far avoided publicly taking sides in the clashes in Aleppo.
The SDF in a statement warned of “dangerous repercussions on civilians, infrastructure, and vital facilities” in case of a further escalation and said Damascus bears “full responsibility for this escalation and all ensuing humanitarian and security repercussions in the region.”
Adm. Brad Cooper, commander of US Central Command, said in a statement Tuesday that the US is “closely monitoring” the situation and called for “all parties to exercise maximum restraint, avoid actions that could further escalate tensions, and prioritize the protection of civilians and critical infrastructure.” He called on the parties to “return to the negotiating table in good faith.”
Al-Sharaa blasts the SDF
In a televised interview aired Wednesday, Al-Sharaa praised the “courage of the Kurds” and said he would guarantee their rights and wants them to be part of the Syrian army, but he lashed out at the SDF.
He accused the group of not abiding by an agreement reached last year under which their forces were supposed to withdraw from neighborhoods they controlled in Aleppo city and of forcibly preventing civilians from leaving when the army opened a corridor for them to evacuate amid the recent clashes.
Al-Sharaa claimed that the SDF refused attempts by France and the US to mediate a ceasefire and withdrawal of Kurdish forces during the clashes due to an order from the PKK.
The interview was initially intended to air Tuesday on Shams TV, a broadcaster based in Irbil — the seat of northern Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish region — but was canceled for what the station initially said were technical reasons.
Later the station’s manager said that the interview had been spiked out of fear of further inflaming tensions because of the hard line Al-Sharaa took against the SDF.
Syria’s state TV station instead aired clips from the interview on Wednesday. There was no immediate response from the SDF to Al-Sharaa’s comments.
