Israel Palestinian President Abbas announces visit to Gaza
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has announced in a speech to the Turkish parliament in Ankara that he intends to travel to the sealed-off Gaza Strip.
15.08.2024, 16:28
SDA
There is no solution in sight, which is why he wants to travel to Gaza with the entire Palestinian leadership, Abbas said to applause from the Turkish MPs in Ankara, according to the translation. In practice, a visit to the still fiercely contested Gaza Strip is unlikely to be feasible.
There is no land connection between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The Rafah border crossing between the Gaza Strip and Egypt is currently controlled by Israel on the Palestinian side. In his speech, Abbas also emphasized that in a possible post-war order, Gaza and the West Bank would have to form a unified Palestinian state.
Prior to his speech in parliament, Abbas had met Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and thanked him for his support of the Palestinian people, among other things.
Abbas (88) is President of the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Chairman of Fatah. He has hardly any support among the Palestinian population. Fatah and Hamas are the two largest Palestinian organizations and bitter rivals. Hamas won the last Palestinian parliamentary elections in 2006. The following year, it seized sole control of the Gaza Strip by force and expelled Fatah from the area. Since then, Abbas has de facto ruled only in the West Bank.
