Palestinian PM Shtayyeh: Hamas must be part of post-Gaza war plan.
Hamas must be part of the ‘day after’ plan for Gaza, West Bank, and east Jerusalem, Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh told the Doha Forum in Qatar on Sunday, insisting that Hamas is an integral part of the Palestinian mosaic. Shtayyeh spoke while the IDF was in the midst of a military campaign to oust Hamas from the Gaza Strip. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has insisted that the PA cannot rule Gaza and that the IDF must retain control of the enclave’s security. The US and the international community have focused on day-after plans, expressing support for PA control of Gaza and the advancement of a two-state solution to the conflict. None of the speakers addressed the complex situation in which Israel had withdrawn from the Gaza Strip in 2005 and handed the enclave to the PA, only to watch Hamas forcibly seize control of that coastal region in 2007. Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said, “There can not be a Gaza alone approach. We need a plan with a clear end game and an implementation mechanism to get to the two-state solution.”
