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Palestinians Must Find New Path from Israeli Rule After War, Top Official Says
Hussein Al-Sheikh, Secretary General of the Executive committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), speaks during an interview with Reuters, in Ramallah in the West Bank December 16, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Ammar Awad
Immediately after Israel’s war in Gaza ends, all Palestinian factions including Hamas must take a serious look at the failure of their policies to achieve freedom for their people, a top Palestinian Authority official said.
Hussein al-Sheikh, 63, said war in Gaza after the Oct. 7 attacks on southern Israel meant Hamas should make a “serious and honest assessment and reconsider all its policies and all its methods” once fighting subsides.
Sheikh, the general secretary of President Mahmoud Abbas’s Palestinian Liberation Organization, is seen by some as a potential successor. His comments were the first time a senior PLO leader has talked publicly about Hamas tactics since the Oct. 7 attacks.
Sheikh also acknowledged the political path under Oslo peace accords was faltering and as it currently stands would not achieve the ambition of the Palestinian people for the establishment of a Palestinian state within pre-1967 borders.
Sheikh and Abbas met senior White House aide Jake Sullivan in Ramallah on Friday. The Palestinians told him a new international effort was needed to persuade Israel of a comprehensive solution that includes the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and eastern Jerusalem, Sheikh told Reuters.
“There must be a single Palestinian government governing the Palestinian homeland,” Sheikh told Reuters on Saturday in a rare interview in sleek offices adorned with portraits of Abbas and his predecessor Yasser Arafat in the West Bank city of Ramallah.
Despite offering welcome verbal backing for a Palestinian state in the meetings, Sheikh said, Washington had not proposed concrete mechanisms or political initiatives. He reiterated a call by Abbas for an international peace conference to forge a new route.
A senior U.S. official said this week the idea of a conference had been discussed with partners, but the proposal was still at a preliminary stage.
LEGITIMATE REPRESENTATIVE
U.S. President Joe Biden has sent a series of top officials to the West Bank to meet Abbas and Sheikh, seeking to revamp the moribund Palestinian Authority to take charge of Gaza once the war is over and unify the administration of the enclave and the West Bank.
Visiting U.S. officials have discussed the need for reforms to combat corruption, hand over broader executive powers to the prime minister and introduce new blood into the Palestinian Authority.
Despite the U.S. efforts, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Friday that he would not allow the Palestinian Authority to run Gaza after the war and suggested Israel would occupy it instead.
Sheikh said the Palestinian Authority was the legitimate representative of the Palestinian people and would be ready to take control of Gaza after the war.
However, he recognized that the unpopular Palestinian Authority, which many Palestinians see as corrupt, undemocratic and out of touch, needed to reassess its role. Hamas by contrast has grown in popularity since the attacks, both in Gaza and the West Bank, a Palestinian poll showed this week.
Referring to Hamas, which has fought five wars against Israel since 2008, Sheikh said “it is not acceptable for some to believe that their method and approach in managing the conflict with Israel was the ideal and the best.
“After all this (killing) and after everything that’s happening, isn’t it worth making a serious, honest and responsible assessment to protect our people and our Palestinian cause?
“Isn’t it worth discussing how to manage this conflict with the Israeli occupation?”
Sheikh said 60% of Gaza was destroyed and it would cost $40 billion to rebuild over decades.
The 1993 Oslo peace accords with Israel were partially successful, he said, in that they gave Palestinians an identity and led to the repatriation of two million refugees to the West Bank and Gaza from countries they fled to during the 1948 and 1967 wars with Israel.
He said the PA has been weakened by Israel’s military raids and expansion of settlements.
Abbas promoted Sheikh last year. His new role effectively makes him the second most powerful man in the PLO, an umbrella for non-Islamist Palestinian factions that does not include Hamas.
He is deeply unpopular among Palestinians partly thanks to his liaison role with the Israeli military. Opinion polls give him about 3% support.
In response to a request for comment, Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri said Sheikh was “on the side of the Israeli civil administration, and him attacking the Palestinian resistance isn’t surprising”.
Sheikh said it was his job to work with Israel to reduce the suffering of Palestinians.
The post Palestinians Must Find New Path from Israeli Rule After War, Top Official Says first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Kurdish-led SDF Say Five Members Killed During Attack by Islamic State in Syria
Islamic State slogans painted along the walls of the tunnel was used by Islamic State militants as an underground training camp in the hillside overlooking Mosul, Iraq, March 4, 2017. Photo: via Reuters Connect.
The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces said on Sunday that five of its members had been killed during an attack by Islamic State militants on a checkpoint in eastern Syria’s Deir el-Zor on July 31.
The SDF was the main fighting force allied to the United States in Syria during fighting that defeated Islamic State in 2019 after the group declared a caliphate across swathes of Syria and Iraq.
The Islamic State has been trying to stage a comeback in the Middle East, the West and Asia. Deir el-Zor city was captured by Islamic State in 2014, but the Syrian army retook it in 2017.
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People ride a motorcycle past a burned-out military vehicle, following deadly clashes between Druze fighters, Sunni Bedouin tribes, and government forces, in Syria’s predominantly Druze city of Sweida, Syria, July 25, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Khalil Ashawi
Armed groups attacked personnel from Syria’s internal security forces in Sweida, killing one member and wounding others, and fired shells at several villages in the violence-hit southern province, state-run Ekhbariya TV reported on Sunday.
The report cited a security source as saying the armed groups had violated the ceasefire agreed in the predominantly Druze region, where factional bloodshed killed hundreds of people last month.
Violence in Sweida erupted on July 13 between tribal fighters and Druze factions. Government forces were sent to quell the fighting, but the bloodshed worsened, and Israel carried out strikes on Syrian troops in the name of the Druze.
The Druze are a minority offshoot of Islam with followers in Syria, Lebanon and Israel. Sweida province is predominantly Druze but is also home to Sunni tribes, and the communities have had long-standing tensions over land and other resources.
A US-brokered truce ended the fighting, which had raged in Sweida city and surrounding towns for nearly a week. Syria said it would investigate the clashes, setting up a committee to investigate the attacks.
The Sweida bloodshed last month was a major test for interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa, after a wave of sectarian violence in March that killed hundreds of Alawite citizens in the coastal region.
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Netanyahu Urges Red Cross to Aid Gaza Hostages
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during a press conference, in Jerusalem, May 21, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun/Pool
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday he spoke with the International Red Cross’s regional head, Julien Lerisson, and requested his involvement in providing food and medical care to hostages held in Gaza.