Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah movement welcomed the 21-point Gaza peace plan unveiled yesterday by US President Donald Trump, Axios correspondent Barak Ravid reported.
Fatah stated: "The Palestinian National Liberation Movement (Fatah) welcomed regional and international efforts, including those of US President Donald Trump, to stop the war and stop the bloodshed of innocent people, leading to peace in the region on the basis of international legitimacy."
The movement added: “We affirm our full readiness to cooperate with all parties to achieve a ceasefire, the entry of humanitarian aid to stop the famine in the Gaza Strip, the release of hostages and prisoners, the establishment of international mechanisms to protect our people, the cessation of unilateral Israeli actions that violate international law, the release of Palestinian tax funds, and the achievement of a complete Israeli withdrawal, the unification of Palestinian land and institutions in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, leading to the end of the occupation on the basis of the two-state solution, to embody the independence of the sovereign State of Palestine in accordance with international legitimacy.”
The plan unveiled by President Trump does not call for the actions against Israel that Fatah called for.
Fatah also stated that it remains committed to carrying out the reforms Abbas has promised foreign leaders and to holding presidential and parliamentary elections within a year of the end of the war. President Trump has emphasized that the successful implementation of the PA's reforms could ultimately pave the way for Palestinian self-determination and statehood.
Israel has seized PA tax funds in response to the PA's continued payments of salaries to terrorists and their families, including the paying of higher salaries to the terrorists who commit the greatest crimes such as mass murder. The policy has been called 'pay-to-slay' by critics who point out that it incentivises acts of terrorism and murder.
Abbas has refused to hold elections for nearly two decades since Hamas won the Gaza parliamentary elections in 2006, and is in the 21st year of his four-year-term in office.