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Palestinian Prime Ministers Since 2003

Ahmed Qurei, Mahmoud Abbas, and Nabil Shaath
Ahmed Qurei, Mahmoud Abbas, and Nabil Shaath
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Palestinian Prime Ministers Since 2003

Ahmed Qurei, Mahmoud Abbas, and Nabil Shaath
Ahmed Qurei, Mahmoud Abbas, and Nabil Shaath

Mahmoud Abbas (Fatah Movement): He assumed the position of prime minister from March 19 till September 6, 2003. He was born in Safad in the far north of Palestine in 1935. His family moved to Syria after the 1948 Nakba. Abbas graduated from the University of Damascus. After enrolling briefly at the Faculty of Law at Cairo University in Egypt, he pursued his studies in Russia and received a Doctorate in political history from the People’s Friendship University in Moscow. He worked in the field of teaching and educational administration in Qatar and was active in political work. He was one of the first leaders of Fatah movement after its establishment. Since then, he took on leadership positions until 2005, when he became president of Fatah and the Palestinian Authority, succeeding former President Yasser Arafat, aka Abu Ammar.
Ahmed Qurei (Abu Alaa) (Fatah): He served as prime minister from October 7, 2003 until December 18, 2005. He was born in Abu Dis, a suburb of East Jerusalem in 1937. A political activist, he started working in the banking sector in Saudi Arabia. Then he got fully engaged in politics with Fatah in 1968. He founded the "SAMED" (Sons of Martyrs of Palestine) in Beirut during the early 70's and served as its director general until it stopped working in 2007-2008. He assumed the post of director general of the Department of Economic Affairs and Planning of the Palestine Liberation Organization. He played a key role in the peace negotiations, where he served as general coordinator of Palestinian delegations for multilateral negotiations and headed the Palestinian delegation during the Palestinian-Israeli talks in Oslo, Norway.
Nabil Shaath (Fatah): He was an interim prime minister between December 18 and 24, 2005. He was born in Safad in 1938 to a father who was the director of the Arab Bank and a Lebanese mother. He was a political banker, a businessman and an academic. His family settled in the Egyptian city of Alexandria. He graduated with a Bachelor's degree in business administration from the University of Alexandria and continued his higher education in the United States, where he received a Master's and Doctorate from the famous Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. He founded several companies, worked as an economic consultant, and for years was a professor at the American University of Beirut. Shaath served as an adviser to Yasser Arafat.
After the establishment of the Palestinian National Authority, he returned to Gaza, where he was elected deputy to Khan Yunis, appointed Minister of Planning and International Cooperation. Under Qurei’s government, he was appointed Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Information.
Ahmed Qurei (Fatah): From December 24, 2005, till March 29, 2006.
Ismail Haniyeh (Hamas): From March 29, 2006, to June 14, 2007. During this period, he served as the head of the “tenth government” and then the “eleventh government” - known as the “national unity government” - until its dissolution and its transformation into a caretaker government, in accordance with the Palestinian Basic Law, and its effective authority has since been confined to the Gaza Strip. Haniyeh was born in Al-Shati refugee camp in the Gaza Strip in 1962. His parents fled to the city of Ashkelon after 1948. He studied at the Islamic University in Gaza and graduated with honors in Arabic literature. He was awarded an honorary doctorate from the same university in 2009.
He began his political activity within the "Islamic bloc", which was the student arm of the Muslim Brotherhood, from which emerged the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas). He was imprisoned by the Israeli authorities in 1989 for three years and then exiled in 1992 for a year in Marj al-Zuhour in south-eastern Lebanon with a group of Hamas leaders. In 1997, Haniyeh was appointed head of the office of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the spiritual leader of Hamas. In December 2005, he headed the Change and Reform List, which won the majority of votes in the second Palestinian legislative elections in 2006. On February 16, 2006, Hamas nominated him for the post of prime minister, to which he was appointed on February 20.
Dr. Salam Fayyad (the "Third Way" bloc): He took office on June 17, 2007, until April 11, 2013. He was born in 1952 in the town of Deir al-Ghusun, near the city of Tulkarm in the far west of the West Bank. In 1975, he received a BA from the American University of Beirut. He then traveled to the United States where he received his Master's degree in accounting from the University of St. Edward, Texas, and then in 1986 his Ph.D. in economics from the University of Texas - Austin.
Fayyad then worked at the World Bank headquarters in Washington, DC, and was promoted to the post of Executive Advisor to the Executive Director (1992-1995). After the signing of the Oslo Agreement in 1993, he served as Resident Representative in Jerusalem to the International Monetary Fund (IMF). In 2002, he was appointed Minister of Finance until 2005. In 2007 he headed an emergency government.
Dr. Rami Hamdallah (Fatah): From June 3, 2013, until March 10, 2019. He was born in 1958 in the town of Anabta near Tulkarm. He graduated from the University of Jordan and then traveled to Britain where he received a Master’s degree from Manchester University in 1982 and a Doctorate in Applied Linguistics from Lancaster University in 1988. He worked as an English professor at An-Najah University, before becoming university president in 1998. He is the secretary-general of the Palestinian Central Elections Commission since 2002.
Dr. Mohamed Ashtiyeh (Fatah): he became prime minister on March 10, 2019.
Read more on Ashtiyeh by clicking here.

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Features

At a Gaza Zoo, War Takes Its Toll on the Animals

A female lion sleeps inside a cage at a zoo in Nuseirat, in the central Gaza Strip, August 12, 2026. (Reuters)
A female lion sleeps inside a cage at a zoo in Nuseirat, in the central Gaza Strip, August 12, 2026. (Reuters)
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At a Gaza Zoo, War Takes Its Toll on the Animals

A female lion sleeps inside a cage at a zoo in Nuseirat, in the central Gaza Strip, August 12, 2026. (Reuters)
A female lion sleeps inside a cage at a zoo in Nuseirat, in the central Gaza Strip, August 12, 2026. (Reuters)

As children walked into the zoo near Gaza's Nuseirat refugee camp, they found a lion barely looking back at them through the bars of its cage and chimpanzees sitting listlessly in their enclosure.

Many of the animals were malnourished, weakened by shortages of food, medicine and vaccines. But they were still alive, largely thanks to the efforts of zoo owner Mahmoud Gomaa.

He originally ran the attraction in the southern city of Rafah, but said he had to flee when Israeli troops attacked and occupied part of the area in 2024.

As the conflict raged, he moved the surviving animals from town to town before finding a place in Nuseirat ‌in central Gaza earlier ‌this year.

There, he reopened the zoo, hoping to give traumatized youngsters ‌something ⁠to enjoy after ⁠nearly three years of destruction.

ZOOKEEPER RETURNED TO FIND ANIMAL BONES

"In the beginning of the war people were looking for a way to survive ... and I was looking for a way to save the animals more than saving myself," Gomaa told Reuters.

There were a number of zoos in Gaza before the conflict between Israel and Hamas erupted, displaying exotic and wild animals including lions and eagles, municipal records show.

Anyone trying to keep one open now faces enormous challenges, ⁠vets and animal experts said, not least in getting food in ‌a territory struggling to feed its human population.

"Owners ‌are currently feeding them frozen meat," veterinarian Nidal Fadel said. "This is a catastrophe and a wrong nutritional plan ‌because in nature they eat fresh prey."

Palestinian children play outside a zoo damaged during the war, in Gaza City, August 15, 2026. (Reuters)

The animals themselves are bearing the brunt ‌of the war — sometimes directly.

When Gomaa fled Rafah, he said he had to leave behind three lions, several crocodiles and some African ostriches.

A few months later, Gomaa returned and only found the bones of the crocodiles and the ostriches. Those three lions, which he had locked in their cages, had ‌disappeared.

There is also the trauma caused by the sound and sight of the conflict raging around them.

"Lions can detect sounds and ⁠disturbances that humans may not ⁠notice," said Amir Khalil, a veterinarian who has led several trips to Gaza by the animal welfare organization Four Paws and rescued other zoos' animals.

"Bombing and constant conflict create enormous stress and fear for them," he added.

In Nuseirat, the surviving lion barely looked up at the visitors. But the children had better luck with some of the other animals, letting parrots ride on their shoulders and petting smaller monkeys.

It was a rare chance to relax in an enclave still facing regular airstrikes, despite a fragile ceasefire. Israel's military, which says its attacks are aimed at militant targets, did not immediately respond to questions about the conflict's impact on civilian facilities like zoos and their animals.

"Today there is no avenue for children to play," said visitor Karam Al-Mazin, 42.

"There is nothing except rubble, stones and tents, so children today are bored and are in a difficult situation."

Features

The 60-day Deadline for an Iran Peace Deal is Expiring. Here's Where Things Stand

A woman holds an Iranian flag as part of a pro-government campaign in downtown Tehran, Iran, Monday, Aug. 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
A woman holds an Iranian flag as part of a pro-government campaign in downtown Tehran, Iran, Monday, Aug. 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
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The 60-day Deadline for an Iran Peace Deal is Expiring. Here's Where Things Stand

A woman holds an Iranian flag as part of a pro-government campaign in downtown Tehran, Iran, Monday, Aug. 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
A woman holds an Iranian flag as part of a pro-government campaign in downtown Tehran, Iran, Monday, Aug. 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

The deal that US President Donald Trump signed at Versailles in June set an ambitious 60-day deadline for ending the war with Iran and reaching an accord on its nuclear program.

The deadline was Monday, and the two sides are further apart than they were then, The Associated Press said.

Talks, such as they are, have focused on reopening the Strait of Hormuz and lifting a US blockade on Iran, both of which were supposed to have happened under the interim deal. There has been no sign of any compromise on the strait, or that detailed nuclear talks have even begun.

The US, meanwhile, has no good options for getting out of the war it started alongside Israel.

Acceding to Iran's latest demands would mean giving it control over a critical international waterway that carried a fifth of the world's traded oil and gas before the war — and would be tantamount to admitting defeat. Escalating the deeply unpopular war would further draw down US supplies of advanced missile interceptors, jolt the world economy, and drive up gas prices ahead of US congressional elections.

So both sides have dug in, hoping the other will blink first. So far, neither has.

The interim deal collapsed weeks later

The June deal, known as the Memorandum of Understanding, called for a halt to all military operations and set a 60-day deadline for an agreement to permanently end the war and resolve the longstanding dispute over Iran's nuclear activities.

It called for the Strait of Hormuz to be reopened but gave Iran a vaguely defined role in facilitating traffic, leaving open the possibility it could charge fees after the 60-day deadline. Iran has seized on that clause to claim control over the waterway.

A week after the deal was signed, Iran began firing on vessels using a route along the coast of Oman, on the other side of the strait, that is overseen by the US military and intended to bypass Tehran's control.

The US responded by striking Iran, which retaliated by attacking Arab countries hosting American forces, like Jordan, Kuwait and Bahrain. The US canceled waivers issued as part of the deal that had allowed Iran to sell its oil internationally and Trump restored a blockade of Iran's ports.

Each side accused the other of violating the June agreement, of which almost nothing remains.

The fighting eventually died down. A related truce in Lebanon between Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah has mostly held, even as Israeli troops occupy large areas in the country's south. Lebanon's "territorial integrity and sovereignty" were to have been ensured under the June deal.

Iranian officials say they stopped negotiating with the US in June, while acknowledging that messages have been relayed by intermediaries. Trump says the talks have continued, occasionally claiming progress after pulling back from threatening major strikes.

Pakistan, which played a key role in brokering the June agreement, noted last week that the deadline was Monday while expressing hope it would be extended.

“We are not closing the chapter,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Tahir Andrabi said. “Pakistan is making all-out efforts to bring the two parties to the negotiating table.”

Iran's leaders think they can force Trump to give up the strait

Earlier this month, Iran issued a list of demands for reopening the strait, including the lifting of the American blockade, the withdrawal of US forces from around Iran and the payment of reparations for damage inflicted in the war started by the US and Israel on Feb. 28.

Even then, Iran has said it would control the strait — and potentially charge fees — through an agreement it is negotiating with Oman, and that the strait will not go back to being an open, toll-free waterway as it was before the war.

Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen have meanwhile begun attacking oil tankers in the Red Sea, threatening another crucial trade route that had been used to relieve some of the pressure from the strait being closed.

Trump has rejected Iran's demands — saying it's Tehran that should pay war reparations and claiming the US controls the strait. He appears to be banking on economic pressure — in the form of the blockade and longstanding sanctions — to bring Iran's rulers to their knees.

Iran's economy has been battered by the war and isolation, and inflation has soared. The crisis could stoke renewed anti-government protests, like those that were brutally crushed in January.

Traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, which rose immediately after the interim deal, is back to a small fraction of what it was before the war. Rising prices of fuel and other goods are expected to climb further the longer this continues with effects far beyond the Middle East.

The clock is still ticking for both sides.

Features

Battered by War, Iran’s Rulers Wary of More Economic Pain and Unrest if US Tightens Pressure

People walk in the Grand Bazaar in Tehran, Iran, August 17, 2026. Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via Reuters
People walk in the Grand Bazaar in Tehran, Iran, August 17, 2026. Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via Reuters
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Battered by War, Iran’s Rulers Wary of More Economic Pain and Unrest if US Tightens Pressure

People walk in the Grand Bazaar in Tehran, Iran, August 17, 2026. Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via Reuters
People walk in the Grand Bazaar in Tehran, Iran, August 17, 2026. Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via Reuters

Even as Iran projects resilience in the war with the United States, its leaders are worried that a threat of more economic punishment by Donald Trump could increase hardships, reignite unrest and further erode the regime’s legitimacy.

The US president vowed on Friday to hit Iran hard economically, a day after Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Washington would impose measures on Tehran that have "never been seen" as early as next week. Washington has not said what those measures will entail.

For all the bravado of Iran's leaders after holding out in nearly six months of conflict and effectively closing the Strait of Hormuz, a vital global oil supply route, they face mounting pressure at home that could result in nationwide unrest, according to three Iranian officials.

The officials, two political insiders, a former Iranian official and a dozen ordinary Iranians spoke to Reuters for this story on condition of anonymity, either for fear of retribution or because they are not authorized to speak to media.

Iran entered the war with high inflation, a weakening currency, energy shortages, sanctions and deep structural weaknesses, and must now contend with damaged infrastructure, disrupted trade, lost production and the cost of rebuilding.

Arshia, a civil engineer, spent a decade working in Iran’s construction industry before the war that began with US and Israeli attacks on February 28 brought projects largely to a standstill.

He is now struggling ‌to find work as ‌projects are delayed or cancelled and costs soar, with little prospect of a rapid recovery.

"I’m worried. If Trump imposes ‌more sanctions, ⁠how will ordinary ⁠people survive? I don’t want my country to be punished militarily or economically. We’re already struggling,” said the father of two from the central city of Isfahan.

His plight reflects a broader reality across Iran, where US strikes damaged factories, power plants, transport networks and other critical infrastructure, adding to pressure on an already strained economy.

Mohsen, 53, was forced to shut his small import-export business with Gulf countries after Iran retaliated against US strikes by targeting American bases and assets in the region.

"I had to lay off 10 employees. It was painful, but I had no choice. I could no longer afford to pay their salaries, and now I’m relying on my savings to support my family," he said from the southern port city of Bandar Abbas.

INFLATION, UNCERTAINTY HIT HOUSEHOLDS

Iran’s annual inflation rate reached 66% in July, while consumer prices were 87.9% higher than a year earlier, according to Iran’s Statistical ⁠Center. Food inflation hit 128% year-on-year.

For Iran’s rulers, the greater threat may be not economic pain itself, but the risk ‌that worsening hardship reignites mass unrest, said the two insiders and one official.

The appointment of Hossein Taeb ‌last week, a key architect of past crackdowns, to lead Iran’s Basij militia is one of the clearest signs yet of growing concern over a resurgence of unrest, a former reformist ‌official said.

The Basij, a paramilitary volunteer militia, is affiliated with Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guards, which have both been used by the clerical rulers to quell protests.

Economic ‌grievances have repeatedly spilled into nationwide protests in Iran in recent years.

In January, nationwide protests over economic hardships were crushed by the IRGC and the Basij force, with thousands killed.

In recent months, Iran’s clerical rulers have responded to fears of renewed unrest with executions, arrests, summonses and lengthy prison sentences targeting journalists, lawyers, activists, human rights advocates and students, rights groups say.

Officials say the measures are needed to maintain stability during wartime. Critics say they could deepen the divide between the clerical establishment and a public frustrated by rising economic pressures.

SALARY 'GONE WITHIN DAYS'

Families are cutting ‌back on meat and other staples, opting for cheaper alternatives.

"I’m ashamed in front of my children. My salary is gone within days. Meat and chicken have disappeared from our table. I have no idea how we’re going to ⁠get by," said Hossein, a government employee in ⁠the central city of Yazd.

Rents rose 31% year-on-year in March, according to the Statistical Centre, while state media reported Tehran housing prices at roughly 50% above last year.

Iran’s minimum wage was raised by about 60% this year, but continued rial depreciation has eroded purchasing power, with the dollar value of the minimum wage falling from about $105 to $86 since late March.

Bijan, 40, earned about $1,000 a month as an engineer when he entered the job market 15 years ago. He has since turned to online tutoring to make ends meet. Now, he and his wife struggle to make about $400 a month and have left Tehran for a cheaper province.

"I used to work maybe five or six hours a day ... Now, it’s all work or looking for work, or feeling anxious about not having enough work," said Bijan.

For many Iranians, fear of renewed conflict has made planning for the future increasingly difficult.

US NAVAL BLOCKADE RATCHETS UP COSTS

Iran has sought to keep essential goods moving through alternative routes, including land corridors and the Caspian Sea, but those alternatives are also coming under strain.

Strikes on bridges have disrupted overland transport, increasing the cost and time needed to move goods into Iran.

President Masoud Pezeshkian last week acknowledged the squeeze, saying: “Our problems have multiplied several times over, while our income has also fallen.”

Goods that once arrived by ship now take longer routes into Iran, driving up prices, he said, adding that Iran is selling less oil and collecting less tax revenue from damaged or struggling businesses.

The blockade has also effectively cut off Iran’s gasoline imports, lawmaker Reza Sepahvand told Iran's ILNA news agency on Saturday, adding that Iran’s daily gasoline output had reached its limit at about 130 million liters, compared with consumption of 137 million liters.