Palestinian Prime Minister, Mohammad Shtayyeh has handed his West Bank government’s resignation to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
According to Shtayyeh, he resigned last Tuesday but handed in the written resignation on Monday, February 26, 2024.
He said his resignation is due to the escalating violence in the occupied West Bank and the war on Gaza.
“I submit the government’s resignation to Mr. President,” Shtayyeh said. He added that it came in the wake of the “developments related to the aggression against the Gaza Strip and the escalation in the West Bank and Jerusalem.”
Shtayyeh added that he was resigning to allow Palestinians to form a broad consensus among Palestinians about political arrangements amid Israel’s war against Hamas, a Palestinian militant group, in Gaza.
The US has been pressuring Abbas to shake up the Palestinian Authority, which rules parts of the occupied West Bank. This comes amid international efforts to stop the war and work toward a political structure to govern Gaza afterward.
Abbas has yet to accept the resignation, and he may ask the Palestinian prime minister to stay in the role until a replacement is found.
In a statement to the Cabinet, Shtayyeh said the next stage would “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.”
He added that “the extension of the [Palestinian] Authority’s authority over the entire land, Palestine,” is another requirement.
The Palestinian Authority lost control over the Gaza Strip following a struggle with Hamas in 2007. Hamas is considered a terrorist organization by the European Union, the United States, and Israel.