Mahmoud Abbas says Hamas will not rule post-war Gaza during meeting with Tony Blair
Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas told reporters on Sunday that Hamas will not rule Gaza after Israel ends its 21-month-long war on the besieged enclave.
During a meeting with former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair in the Jordanian capital, Amman, Abbas also said Hamas must hand over its weapons to the PA and "engage in political work under a unified legal system - one authority, one law, and one legitimate weapon".
Abbas, 89, and his administration are deeply unpopular among ordinary Palestinians due to allegations of corruption and their close ties with Israel.
Since the start of the year, PA security forces have intensified a crackdown on armed groups in the occupied West Bank, killing dozens of fighters opposed to Israel.
Earlier this year, in a development first reported by Middle East Eye, Abbas visited Lebanon, where he agreed to a framework under which Palestinian factions would disarm.
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Palestinian groups have argued that bearing arms is essential due to threats posed by Israel and continued political marginalisation.
At Sunday's meeting with Blair, Abbas said the only viable solution after the war was for a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, with the PA assuming full responsibility of the territory - supported by Arab countries and the international community.
He also called for an international conference to be held in New York to implement a two-state solution based on the Arab Peace Initiative.
In March, Arab states endorsed a 91-page proposal for the future of Gaza, with a $53bn budget for reconstruction over a five-year period.
The initiative, led by Egypt, was presented as an alternative to a plan to forcibly expel Palestinians from Gaza proposed by US President Donald Trump.
Cairo's plan states that for the first six months, the territory would be run by a non-partisan technocratic committee, overseen by the PA.
Hamas, which has controlled Gaza since 2007, has reiterated in recent months that it is not interested in being part of any administrative structure in post-war Gaza.
Tony Blair Institute mired in controversy
The Palestinian president's meeting with the former UK premier comes just days after the Tony Blair Institute (TBI) was linked to a project widely condemned for proposing the ethnic cleansing of Gaza.
The vision, outlined in a slide deck titled "The Great Trust", was created by a group of Israeli businessmen with support from consultants at Boston Consulting Group (BCG).
BCG’s plan assumed that at least 25 percent of Palestinians would leave "voluntarily", with most never returning. While it remains unclear whether Palestinians would have any choice in the matter, the proposal has been widely condemned as ethnic cleansing of Gaza’s population.
The project aimed to transform the enclave, which has been reduced to rubble by Israeli bombardment, into a lucrative investment hub. Central to the proposal were blockchain-based trade schemes, special economic zones with low taxes, and artificial islands modelled after Dubai’s coastline.
Although TBI insists it neither endorsed nor authored the slide deck, two of its staff members participated in discussions related to the initiative.
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