Fatah’s Central Committee on Saturday agreed to begin a comprehensive Palestinian national dialogue in Egypt with other Palestinian factions, official Palestinian sources reported.
Fatah reaffirmed its support for holding elections across the Palestinian territories, including the Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem, the reports said.
The committee said it would remain in continuous session to monitor developments and address existing and emerging challenges ahead of the Palestinian Legislative Council election on November 28.
The committee unanimously agreed to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s call for Egypt to host the dialogue. Egypt has recently hosted representatives of exiled Fatah leader Mohammad Dahlan’s Democratic Reform Current, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), and other Palestinian factions for unity talks.
It was reaffirmed that Palestinians across all the territories, including east Jerusalem, should participate in the vote, an issue that allowed Abbas to indefinitely postpone elections in 2021.
PA Vice President Hussein al-Sheikh was pushing Abbas to again postpone the election because the Central Elections Commission cannot hold elections in the Gaza Strip or in east Jerusalem, people familiar with the matter have told Yoni Ben-Menachem, a senior researcher at the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs.
Discussions in Cairo could lead to the postponement of the long-awaited election, senior Fatah figures told English-language news site The New Arab on Sunday.
Two decades after Hamas seized control of Gaza
Although the official statement did not name the factions expected to participate, Arab media outlets said Hamas, PIJ, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), and factions within the PLO could be invited.
Dahlan and Nasser al-Qudwa, head of the Palestinian National Democratic Forum, would be excluded, the reports said.
Cairo hosted Fatah-Hamas reconciliation talks in 2023, although the efforts failed to produce a lasting agreement and prompted concerns in Western capitals that closer Fatah-Hamas ties could weaken the PLO’s standing internationally and complicate efforts to establish a Palestinian state.
Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip from Fatah in 2007, following violent clashes between the rival factions.
Despite leaks suggesting that many Fatah members want the PLC election postponed, the Central Elections Commission on Saturday said nominations had begun and that it received applications from the Future Palestine Coalition, Qa’imat Al-Adala Wal-Bina (Justice and Construction), the Democratic Reform Current, al-Mubadara (National Initiative), A New Path, and Labor.