In Turkey, Abbas declares he’ll go to Gaza ‘even if it costs my life,’ mourns Haniyeh
PA leader tells parliament in Ankara there can be no Palestinian state without Gaza: ‘We don’t accept any solution that would divide our territories’
The Times of Israel
Aug 15, 2024
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas told a special session of the Turkish parliament on Thursday that he would travel to the Gaza Strip, where 10 months of war have left rival faction Hamas battered and largely unable to rule.
Abbas’s declaration that he would lead a delegation to the enclave came as negotiators met in the Qatari capital of Doha to attempt to hammer out the final details of an elusive deal meant to halt fighting in the enclave and free hostages held there by the Hamas terror group.
“I have decided to go to Gaza with other brothers from the Palestinian leadership,” Abbas said to applause from Turkish lawmakers. “I will do that, even if this would cost my life,” Abbas added in remarks translated into Turkish from Arabic. “Our life is not more worthy than the life of a child.”
With Israel currently controlling all entry points into the Strip, Abbas will not be able to enter the enclave without approval and coordination with Jerusalem. Access to the enclave has been severely restricted since October 7, when Hamas carried out an unprecedented attack from Gaza, killing some 1,200 people in Gaza and kidnapping 251, mostly civilians.
The Ramallah-based Abbas heads Fatah, which controls the PA in the West Bank but was violently ousted from Gaza by Hamas in a 2007 coup. Abbas has not been to the enclave since, though he also vowed in 2017 to travel to Gaza during a short-lived Fatah-Hamas rapprochement.
That trip never took place, and a year later when PA prime minister Rami Hamdallah attempted to visit Gaza, he was targeted by a car bomb in a failed assassination attempt by Palestinians in the Strip.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to eliminate Hamas, but has also rejected international pressure for control of Gaza to be handed to the PA following the war.
Abbas, who added a visit to Turkey after meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, said the Palestinian people would stand tall despite Israeli strikes, speaking as Hamas-controlled health authorities in Gaza said the death toll from the fighting had surpassed 40,000, without differentiating between civilians and fighters. Israel says it has killed at least 16,000 combatants. Neither number can be confirmed independently.
“Gaza is ours as a whole. We don’t accept any solution that would divide our territories,” he told the parliament.
“There cannot be a Palestinian state without Gaza. Our people will not surrender,” he promised.
In October, Abbas told US President Joe Biden’s administration that he would not return to Gaza “on top of an Israeli tank” and would only agree to retake control of Gaza as part of a larger statehood arrangement, according to a Palestinian official.
He spoke in Turkey while wearing a white scarf decorated with Turkish and Palestinian flags, also donned by many of the deputies listening to his speech and by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who was present in parliament during the keynote address.
Abbas, who met with Erdogan Wednesday, also commemorated Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh, who was killed in Tehran, and said prayers.
A picture of the slain terror leader framed by red carnations was seated in one of the front chairs in the parliament as Abbas was delivering a speech.
Haniyeh was a frequent visitor to Turkey and had close ties with Erdogan, who deems Hamas a liberation movement.
Erdogan has been a fierce critic of Israel’s conduct in the war sparked by Hamas’s October 7 attacks, dubbing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “the butcher of Gaza.”
Abbas commended Erdogan’s “courageous” stance and criticized the international community’s “silence to the massacres carried out by Israel.”
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