Abbas to Invite Hamas, Palestinian Factions to Emergency Meeting in Cairo

Fatah Central Committee meeting (website)
Fatah Central Committee meeting (website)
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Abbas to Invite Hamas, Palestinian Factions to Emergency Meeting in Cairo

Fatah Central Committee meeting (website)
Fatah Central Committee meeting (website)

Azzam al-Ahmad, a member of the executive committee of the PLO and the central committee of the Fatah movement, has said that President Mahmoud Abbas will invite the general secretaries of the factions to attend an emergency meeting in Cairo.

The Palestinian leadership chose Egypt as a location for the meeting to bring all factions together, including Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

An informed source told Asharq Al-Awsat in remarks published Friday that all Palestinian factions will be invited, saying Abbas would attend the meeting as “the president of the Palestinian people.”

Palestinian Deputy Prime Minister Ziyad Abu Amr had previously confirmed Egypt’s approval to host a meeting of the secretaries-general of the Palestinian factions.

He added that the meeting was aimed at “agreeing on a comprehensive national vision and uniting the Palestinian ranks.”

The Palestinian official also stressed “the importance of the role played by the brotherly Arab Republic of Egypt in defending the rights of the Palestinian people.”

The Palestinian factions, including Hamas, did not immediately comment on the invitation, which would be sent in light of differences that emerged in the West Bank between the Fatah and Hamas movements, after mourners attacked members of the Fatah Central Committee in the Jenin cemetery on Wednesday.

Videos spread on social media showed mourners interrupting a speech by Abbas’ deputy, Mahmoud Al-Aloul, before the situation became tense and some chanted for the expulsion of Palestinian officials.

Israeli newspapers headlined that the Palestinians in Jenin had expelled Abbas’ deputy. Fatah accused Hamas of being behind the incident, which caused widespread tension and controversy that spread to social media, before gunmen from Fatah in Nablus, in the northern West Bank, forced the owners of Hamas shops to close their businesses.

Al-Ahmad told Voice of Palestine radio on Thursday that the leadership of the Hamas movement has launched a campaign to stop the meeting from taking place. He described the incident at the Jenin camp as being “consistent with [Hamas’] approach of betrayal and shedding Palestinian blood.”

On Thursday, the Fatah Central Committee issued a statement, saying that it would “not allow those with external agendas to tamper with the unity of our people, and will not hesitate to cut off the roots of sedition.”



Anxiety Clouds Easter for West Bank Christians

Residents of the West Bank town of Zababdeh say its church bells are often drowned out by the roar of Israeli air force jets headed for action nearby. - AFP
Residents of the West Bank town of Zababdeh say its church bells are often drowned out by the roar of Israeli air force jets headed for action nearby. - AFP
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Anxiety Clouds Easter for West Bank Christians

Residents of the West Bank town of Zababdeh say its church bells are often drowned out by the roar of Israeli air force jets headed for action nearby. - AFP
Residents of the West Bank town of Zababdeh say its church bells are often drowned out by the roar of Israeli air force jets headed for action nearby. - AFP

In the mainly Christian Palestinian town of Zababdeh, the runup to Easter has been overshadowed by nearby Israeli military operations, which have proliferated in the occupied West Bank alongside the Gaza war.

This year unusually Easter falls on the same weekend for all of the town's main Christian communities -- Catholic, Orthodox and Anglican --- and residents have attempted to busy themselves with holiday traditions like making date cakes or getting ready for the scout parade.

But their minds have been elsewhere.

Dozens of families from nearby Jenin have found refuge in Zababdeh from the continual Israeli military operations that have devastated the city and its adjacent refugee camp this year.

"The other day, the (Israeli) army entered Jenin, people were panicking, families were running to pick up their children," said Zababdeh resident Janet Ghanam.

"There is a constant fear, you go to bed with it, you wake up with it," the 57-year-old Anglican added, before rushing off to one of the last Lenten prayers before Easter.

Ghanam said her son had told her he would not be able to visit her for Easter this year, for fear of being stuck at the Israeli military roadblocks that have mushroomed across the territory.

Zabadeh's Anglican church was busy in the runup to Easter but across the West Bank Christian communities have been in sharp decline as people emigrate in search of a better life abroad.

Zabadeh looks idyllic, nestled in the hills of the northern West Bank, but the roar of Israeli air force jets sometimes drowns out the sound of its church bells.

"It led to a lot of people to think: 'Okay, am I going to stay in my home for the next five years?'" said Saleem Kasabreh, an Anglican deacon in the town.

"Would my home be taken away? Would they bomb my home?"

- 'Existential threat' -

Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967 and in recent months far-right ministers in its coalition government have called for the annexation of swathes of the territory.

Kasabreh said this "existential threat" was compounded by constant "depression" at the news from Gaza, where the death toll from the Israel's response to Hamas's October 2023 attack now tops 51,000, according to the Hamas-run territory's health ministry.

Work has been hard to find for Zababdeh's mainly Christian residents since Israel rescinded Palestinian work permits following the October 2023 attack by Hamas that sparked the Gaza war.

Zababdeh has been spared the devastation wreaked on Gaza, but the mayor's office says nearly 450 townspeople lost their jobs in Israel when Palestinian work permits were rescinded after the Hamas attack.

"Israel had never completely closed us in the West Bank before this war," said 73-year-old farmer Ibrahim Daoud. "Nobody knows what will happen".

Many say they are stalked by the spectre of exile, with departures abroad fuelling fears that Christians may disappear from the Holy Land.

"People can't stay without work and life isn't easy," said 60-year-old maths teacher Tareq Ibrahim.

Mayor Ghassan Daibes echoed his point.

"For a Christian community to survive, there must be stability, security and decent living conditions. It's a reality, not a call for emigration," he said.

"But I´m speaking from lived experience: Christians used to make up 30 percent of the population in Palestine; today, they are less than one percent.

"And this number keeps decreasing. In my own family, I have three brothers abroad -- one in Germany, the other two in the United States."

Catholic priest Father Elias Tabban insists the hard times his congregation has been going though have deepened their faith.

Catholic priest Elias Tabban adopted a more stoical attitude, insisting his congregation's spirituality had never been so vibrant.

"Whenever the Church is in hard times... (that's when) you see the faith is growing," Tabban said.