RAMALLAH – Palestinian Authority’s Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh said on Monday that he has officially submitted his government’s resignation to President Mahmoud Abbas.
“I submitted the government’s resignation to President Mahmoud Abbas on February 20, 2024, and today I submit it in writing,” he stated.
The Prime Minister explained at the beginning of the weekly Cabinet session held today in the city of Ramallah that “this decision comes in light of the political, security, and economic developments related to the aggression against Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip, and the unprecedented escalation in the West Bank, including the city of Jerusalem.”
“It comes in light of what Palestinian people, our Palestinian cause, and our political system are facing from a ferocious and unprecedented attack, genocide, attempts at forced displacement, starvation in Gaza, intensification of colonialism, colonisers’ terrorism, and repeated invasions of camps, villages, and cities in Jerusalem and the West Bank, Its re-occupation, unprecedented financial strangulation, attempts to liquidate the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Refugees, repudiation of all signed agreements, gradual annexation of Palestinian lands, and striving to make the Palestinian National Authority a security administrative authority with no political content,” he added.
“We will remain in confrontation with the occupation, and the Palestinian Authority will continue to struggle to establish the state on the lands of Palestine,” he said.
He pointed out that his government has worked in complicated circumstances, and faced battles imposed on it, starting with the Israeli piracy of Palestinian money due to our commitment to our duties towards the families of the slain Palestinians, prisoners, and the wounded, then came the “Deal of the Century,” which wanted to end the Palestinian cause, and was followed by the COVID-19 pandemic that ravaged all of humanity, then the Ukraine war, and its economic repercussions on Palestinian people, and the competition of successive Israeli governments in colonisation, killing, and abuse of Palestinian people, and currently the genocide being committed against Palestinian people in Gaza, and the continuous escalation in Jerusalem, the West Bank, and all parts of the Palestinian territories.
“In the midst of all this, the government was able to achieve a balance between meeting the needs of our people, and the requirements of providing services worthy of them, such as infrastructure, legislation, reform programs, civil peace, municipal elections, chambers of commerce, and so on – and preserving our political and national rights, and protecting them, confronting settlement, supporting the confrontation areas and Area C, and internationalizing the conflict with the occupation,” he continued.
“On the other hand, five years have passed since the formation of the government, and it is a political and professional government that includes a number of political partners and independents, including five ministers from Gaza,” Shtayyeh noted.
“Accordingly, I see that the next stage and its challenges require new governmental and political arrangements that take into account the emerging reality in the Gaza Strip, the national unity talks, and the urgent need for an inter-Palestinian consensus based on a national basis, broad participation, unity of ranks, and the extension of the Palestinian Authority’s sovereignty over the entire land of Palestine,” he added, stating that for this reason, he submitted the government’s resignation to President Abbas.
He extended his sincere thanks to President Abbas for his wisdom and support, and to the ministers for their exceptional work in exceptional circumstances, and to the partners from the factions participating in the government.
