Fatah and Hamas spar over new Palestine PM while Israel pummels Gaza

Palestinian resistance group Hamas and President Mahmoud Abbas's party Fatah have clashed over the appointment of a new prime minister, with Hamas saying the individual decision "deepens division" between the two sides and Fatah claiming Hamas is "disconnected from reality."

Abbas appointed Mohammed Mustafa, a long-trusted adviser on economic affairs, as prime minister on Thursday and tasked him with forming a new government. But the appointment appears to have sowed a discord amongst the Palestinian factions.

"We express our rejection of continuing this approach that has inflicted and continues to inflict harm on our people and our national cause," Hamas resistance group said in a statement on Friday.

"Making individual decisions and engaging in superficial and empty steps such as forming a new government without national consensus only reinforces a policy of unilateralism and deepens division."

At a time of war with Israel, Palestinians needed a unified leadership preparing for free democratic elections involving all components of their society, the statement added.

The other signatories of the statement were Islamic Jihad, the second-largest resistance group in Gaza, the leftist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the Palestinian National Initiative, a political party which seeks a third way between Fatah and Hamas.

Fatah hit back and accused Hamas of "having caused the return of the Israeli occupation of Gaza" by "undertaking the October 7 adventure".

This led to a "catastrophe even more horrible and cruel than that of 1948", a reference to the Nakba, in the displacement and expulsion of some 760,000 Palestinians from their lands at the creation of Israel, Fatah statement said.

"The real disconnection from reality and the Palestinian people is that of the Hamas leadership," said Fatah, accusing Hamas of not having "consulted" the other Palestinian leaders before launching its attack on Israel.

"Has Hamas consulted the Palestinian leadership as it is negotiating with Israel now and offering the concessions, in a bid to secure guarantees of its leaders' personal safety in return?" said the Fatah statement.

Hamas' October blitz

Hamas says its October 7 blitz on Israel that surprised its arch-enemy was orchestrated in response to Israeli attacks on Al Aqsa Mosque, illegal settler violence in occupied West Bank and to put Palestine question "back on the table."

In an assault of startling breadth, Hamas gunmen rolled into as many as 22 locations outside Gaza, including towns and other communities as far as 24 kilometres from the Gaza fence.

In some places they are said to have gunned down many soldiers as Israel's military scrambled to muster response.

And upon return to Gaza, they also took along some 240 captives, including Israeli military personnel and civilians.

Dozens of the captives were later exchanged for Palestinians incarcerating in Israeli dungeons.

Since then, Israel has heavily bombarded Gaza from air, land and sea, killing more than 31,000 Palestinians, mostly children and women, wounding more than 73,000 and displacing most of 2.3 million people in the tiny coastal enclave.

Mustafa's tasks

Mustafa replaces Mohammed Shtayyeh, who resigned less than three weeks ago, citing the need for change.

He accepted the appointment and said in a letter to Abbas published on Friday he was "well aware of the severity of the... dire circumstances that the Palestinian people are going through".

Mustafa, 69, now faces the task of forming a new government for the Palestinian Authority, which has limited powers in parts of the Israel-occupied West Bank.

Control of the Palestinian territories has been divided between Abbas's Palestinian Authority in the occupied West Bank and Hamas in besieged Gaza since 2007.

Analysts have said Mustafa's closeness to Abbas would limit chances for major reform of the Palestinian Authority.

The United States and other powers have called for a reformed Palestinian Authority to take charge of all Palestinian territories after the war ends.

But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government has rejected post-war plans for Palestinian sovereignty and approved a plan to invade Gaza's Rafah area, the city on the southern edge of the shattered Palestinian enclave where more than half of its 2.3 million residents are sheltering after five months of war.