GATESTONE
Iran’s War Against Israel – From the West Bank
Khaled Abu Toameh
August 28, 2024

…On August 25, a committee set up by Abbas to prepare for the return of the Palestinian Authority to the Gaza Strip decided to “contact the political bureau of Hamas and other Palestinian factions in order to agree and reach an understanding with them” on Abbas’s plans to head to the coastal enclave. Abbas, it seems, believes that he can reach an advantageous deal with Hamas, whose members staged a bloody coup against his PA in 2007 and were preparing to assassinate him. The PA will never be able to assume control of the Gaza Strip as long as Hamas’s military capabilities have not been destroyed. Even if Abbas does go back to the Gaza Strip, it is not probable that he would be able to confront Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups there. As in the West Bank, new “battalions” and militias will no doubt spring up in the Gaza Strip under Abbas’s PA to pursue the Jihad (holy war) to eliminate Israel and replace it with an Islamist state. READ MORE