In this file photo taken on March 22, 2018 Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas gestures while speaking during a joint press conference with the visiting Bulgarian president at the Palestinian Authority headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah.Gaza’s Islamist rulers Hamas and their rivals Fatah in the occupied West Bank agreed Thursday to hold the first Palestinian elections since 2006, united by their opposition to Arab-Israeli normalisation deals.
The last Palestinian parliamentary elections in 2006 saw Hamas win an unexpected landslide and the following year the Islamists seized control of the Gaza Strip in a near-civil war between the two factions.“This time we reached a real consensus,” he said, speaking to AFP by phone from Istanbul.The intra-Palestinian reconciliation attempts took on greater urgency after the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain normalised relations with Israel, becoming only the third and fourth Arab nations to do so.
She also urged the international community to “ensure that Israel does not hamper or obstruct” the vote. Numerous attempts at reconciliation, including a prisoner exchange agreement in 2012 and a short-lived coalition government two years later, have failed to close the rift. According to a rare poll by the Palestinian Centre for Policy and Research carried out earlier this year, Hamas’s Haniyeh would beat Abbas in a presidential election.
Nigeria Latest News, Nigeria Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Source: GuardianNigeria - 🏆 1. / 94 Read more »
Source: MobilePunch - 🏆 8. / 63 Read more »
Source: Daily Trust - 🏆 13. / 51 Read more »
Source: PremiumTimesng - 🏆 3. / 78 Read more »
Source: TheNationNews - 🏆 6. / 69 Read more »
Source: TheNationNews - 🏆 6. / 69 Read more »