On Monday, Prime Minister Mohamed Shtayeh and his cabinet presented their resignation to Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA).
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"I put the government's resignation at the disposal of President Mahmoud Abbas on Tuesday, February 20, and today I present it in writing," Shtayeh said at the beginning of a meeting with the PNA cabinet in Ramallah, in the West Bank.
Shtayeh explained that this decision comes "in light of the political, security and economic developments related to the aggression against our people in the Gaza Strip, and the unprecedented escalation in the West Bank, including the city of East Jerusalem."
"The resignation comes in light of what our people, our Palestinian cause and our political system face: a ferocious and unprecedented attack, genocide, attempted forced displacement, famine in Gaza, intensification of colonialism, settler terrorism and repeated invasions of fields and villages in Jerusalem and the West Bank," Shtayeh lamented.
"We will continue to be in confrontation with the occupation, and the Palestinian National Authority will continue to fight to establish the State on the lands of Palestine, against its will," said Shtayeh, who thanked President Abbas for "his wisdom and support" and his ministers "for his exceptional work in exceptional circumstances."
Shtayeh considered that the current government, which has served for five years, did a good job under difficult circumstances. However, he opted for "a new stage whose challenges require new governmental and political agreements that take into account the new reality in the Gaza Strip and dialogue for national unity."
"We have an urgent need for an inter-Palestinian consensus, with a national basis, broad participation, unity of ranks and the extension of the PNA throughout the land of Palestine," he stated, making tacit reference to the failed efforts at national reconciliation after several unsuccessful dialogue attempts between Fatah, a secular party that controls the ANP, and Hamas and other groups such as Islamic Jihad.
The PNA cabinet resignation comes at a time when Israel has presented a "post-war plan for the Gaza Strip." This proposal has sparked a discussion about who will assume civilian control of that Palestinian territory, where the Zionist state will not consent to the Islamist group Hamas regaining power.
Presented on Feb. 22, the Israeli Post-War Plan does not mention the existence of a civilian government. However, it does highlight that Zionist troops will control security in Gaza with freedom of movement, just as it is currently happening in the occupied West Bank, where Israeli soldiers regularly come in to arrest "terrorism suspects."
It seems that the United States wants the PNA, which currently governs small areas of the West Bank, to assume executive functions in Gaza when the war ends. Israel, however, has been reluctant to such a possibility.