PALESTINIAN prime minister Mohammad Shtayyeh announced Monday the resignation of his government, which rules parts of the Israeli occupied West Bank, citing the need for change after the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza ends.
Shtayyeh submitted the resignation to the leader of the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority, president Mahmud Abbas, 88, whose office later said he accepted it.
The United States and other powers have called for a reformed Palestinian Authority to take charge of all Palestinian territories after the end of the war sparked by Hamas’s October 7 attack.
Shtayyeh cited “developments related to the aggression against the Gaza Strip and the escalation in the West Bank and Jerusalem”, which have also been torn by deadly violence during the war.
He said he had first offered Abbas the resignation last Tuesday, but was formally submitting it “in writing” on Monday.
Shtayyeh, 66, said in brief comments that “the next stage and its challenges require new governmental and political measures that take into account the new reality in the Gaza Strip”.
He called for intra-Palestinian consensus and the “extension of the Authority’s rule over the entire land of Palestine”.
Abbas issued a decree accepting the resignation and assigned Shtayyeh’s government to continue “temporarily until a new government is formed,” a statement from the presidency said.
Israel has ruled out any future political role for the Islamist movement Hamas in Gaza, but has suggested that local Palestinian officials could play a role.
Abbas, 88 is widely unpopular in the West Bank and has faced mounting anger since the Gaza war began on October 7. Many criticise him for failing to more severely condemn the Israeli offensive there as well as the rising violence in the West Bank.
