Hamas Wants Russia To Encourage Palestinian President To Form Postwar Unity Government

Conditions in the Gaza Strip, Palestine. (UNRWA/Ashraf Amra)

JAKARTA - Palestinian militant group Hamas wants Russia to encourage Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to start negotiations over the postwar national unity government in Gaza, a senior group official told the Russian state news agency.

It was discussed in a meeting of members of the Hamas polytburo Mousa Abu Marzouk with the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Russia Mikhail Bogdanov in Moscow.

"We discussed issues related to Palestinian national unity and the formation of a government that will rule the Gaza Strip after the war," Marzouk said, citing Reuters from RIA Oct. 24.

Marzouk said Hamas had asked Russia to encourage Abbas, who attended the BRICS summit in Kazan, to start negotiations over the unity government.

Mahmoud Abbas is the Head of the Palestinian Authority (PA), the occupied Palestinian governing body.

PA was founded three decades ago under a temporary peace agreement known as Oslo's Deal, running a limited government over parts of the occupied West Bank, which Palestine wants as the core of an independent country in the future.

PA, which is controlled by Abbas's Fatah political faction, has long had strained ties to Hamas who control Gaza. The two factions were involved in a brief war before Fatah was expelled from the Palestinian enclave in 2007.

On the other hand, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has expressed strong opposition to PA's involvement in managing Gaza.