RAMALLAH, Palestinian Territories: Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas on Wednesday announced who would replace him in an interim period when the post becomes vacant, effectively removing Hamas from any involvement in a future transition.
Abbas, 89, still rules despite his term as head of the Palestinian Authority ending in 2009, and has resisted pressure to appoint a successor or a vice president.
Under current Palestinian law, the speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) takes over the Palestinian Authority in the event of a power vacuum.
But the PLC, where Hamas had a majority, no longer exists since Abbas officially dissolved it in 2018 after more than a decade of tensions between his secular party, Fatah, and Hamas, which ousted the Palestinian Authority from power in the Gaza Strip in 2007.
In a decree, Abbas said the Palestinian National Council chairman, Rawhi Fattuh, would be his temporary replacement should the position should become vacant.
“If the position of the president of the national authority becomes vacant in the absence of the legislative council, the Palestinian National Council president shall assume the duties... temporarily,” it said.
The decree added that following the transition period, elections must be held within 90 days. This deadline can be extended in the event of a “force majeure,” it said.
The PNC is the parliament of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), which has over 700 members from the Palestinian territories and abroad.
Hamas, which does not belong to the PLO, has no representation on the council. The PNC deputies are not elected, but appointed.
The decree refers to the “delicate stage in the history of the homeland and the Palestinian cause” as war rages in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, after the latter’s unprecedented attack on southern Israel in October last year.
There are also persistent divisions between Hamas and Fatah.
The decree comes on the same day that a ceasefire entered into force in Lebanon after an agreement between Israel and Hamas’s ally, the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.
The Palestinian Authority appears weaker than ever, unable to pay its civil servants and threatened by Israeli far-right ministers’ calls to annex all or part of the occupied West Bank, an ambition increasingly less hidden by the government of Benjamin Netanyahu.
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Palestinian leader Abbas lays ground for succession
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Palestinian leader Abbas lays ground for succession
- Abbas, 89, still rules despite his term as head of the Palestinian Authority ending in 2009, and has resisted pressure to appoint a successor or a vice president
- He said the Palestinian National Council chairman, Rawhi Fattuh, would be his temporary replacement should the position should become vacant
Drone strikes blamed on Iran hit Iranian Kurdish camp in Iraq: official, exiled group
IRBIL: Drone stikes blamed on Iran hit on Tuesday a camp hosting Iranian Kurdish fighters and family members in northern Iraq, a local official and an exiled opposition group said.
Iraq’s northern autonomous Kurdish region hosts camps and rear-bases operated by several Iranian Kurdish rebel groups, which have repeatedly faced cross-border strikes from Iran.
A local official in the Koysinjaq district, Tareq Al-Haidari, told AFP “three Iranian drones targeted the Azadi camp, which belongs to Iranian Kurdish opposition parties in the district.”
One drone directly hit the camp’s hospital, wounding one person, said Haidari and a commander from the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (PDKI).
PDKI commander Mohammed Nazif Kader told AFP “drones and missiles attacked the camp,” blaming the attack on Iran.
For decades, the Koysinjaq district, known as Koya to Kurds, has been home to the PDKI.
Iran has designated Kurdish opposition groups as terrorist organizations, and has accused them of serving Western or Israeli interests in the past.
These groups have previously fought Iranian security forces in Kurdish-majority areas along the border.
But in recent years, they have largely refrained from armed activity, although they continue to actively campaign from exile against the Islamic republic.
Last week, five groups, including the PDKI, announced a political coalition to seek the overthrow of Iran’s Islamic republic and ultimately to secure Kurdish self-determination.
Iraq’s northern autonomous Kurdish region hosts camps and rear-bases operated by several Iranian Kurdish rebel groups, which have repeatedly faced cross-border strikes from Iran.
A local official in the Koysinjaq district, Tareq Al-Haidari, told AFP “three Iranian drones targeted the Azadi camp, which belongs to Iranian Kurdish opposition parties in the district.”
One drone directly hit the camp’s hospital, wounding one person, said Haidari and a commander from the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (PDKI).
PDKI commander Mohammed Nazif Kader told AFP “drones and missiles attacked the camp,” blaming the attack on Iran.
For decades, the Koysinjaq district, known as Koya to Kurds, has been home to the PDKI.
Iran has designated Kurdish opposition groups as terrorist organizations, and has accused them of serving Western or Israeli interests in the past.
These groups have previously fought Iranian security forces in Kurdish-majority areas along the border.
But in recent years, they have largely refrained from armed activity, although they continue to actively campaign from exile against the Islamic republic.
Last week, five groups, including the PDKI, announced a political coalition to seek the overthrow of Iran’s Islamic republic and ultimately to secure Kurdish self-determination.
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