The Hamas movement, a Palestinian faction that is not represented at the PLO, released a statement on Monday “expressing deep sorrow and denouncement over the behavior of the PA's president and his bodyguard towards comrade Shihada.” The leftist PLO faction commonly and affectionately refers to its members as “comrades.”
“They swore at him using repulsive phrases and they assaulted him and tried to prevent him from talking,” Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhum wrote.
He reiterated Muhanna’s criticism that Abbas, who has been president since 2005, was taking an “exclusionary” approach to governing, which was particularly regrettable given that Palestinians had entered a “historic stage” and “should unite and close ranks in order to counter the Israeli occupation's plans and projects against Jerusalem and the Al-Aqsa Mosque.”
"This behavior exposes that the rhetoric Abbas used in his latest speech regarding unity, reconciliation, and the protection of people's interests was patently false," Barhum concluded.
Both the Fatah-led PA and Hamas movement, the de facto ruling party in the besieged Gaza Strip, called for Palestinian national unity on Sunday amid ongoing protests over increased Israeli security measures at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in occupied East Jerusalem.
While Abbas said he decided to cut all ties with Israel over the Al-Aqsa crisis, multiple unconfirmed reports have cast doubts over the seriousness of Abbas’ announcement.
The PA has been the focus of fierce condemnation in recent months, particularly for its security coordination with Israel, as well as accusations that it has deliberately pushed the impoverished Gaza Strip further into a humanitarian catastrophe in order to wrest control of the territory from Hamas.
A recent public opinion poll conducted by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research showed that 62 percent of the Palestinian public want president Abbas to resign -- 55 percent of people in the West Bank and 75 percent of people in the Gaza Strip."
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