Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas plans to impose additional sanctions on the Gaza Strip, Palestinian officials were quoted by Arab media as saying Wednesday.
According to the reports, Abbas, who is currently in New York to attend the 73rd U.N. General Assembly, plans to convene his government upon his return to Ramallah and outline a series of new financial sanctions against Hamas, the terrorist organization that rules Gaza.
Hamas routed Abbas' Fatah-led government from power in Gaza in 2007, effectively splitting the Palestinian population into two separate political entities. Egyptian efforts over the past decade to promote a reconciliation between the rival Palestinian factions – the latest brokered in October 2017 – have so far failed.
The consistent failure to reinstate the Palestinian Authority's power in Gaza has prompted Abbas to impose a series of crippling financial sanctions on its rulers, including suspending the salaries of thousands of Hamas government employees and cutting PA payments for the electricity used in Gaza, in an effort to regain control of the Strip.
These moves have significantly aggravated the already dire economic reality in Gaza. With unemployment exceeding 50% and no growth to speak of, the World Bank has recently warned the coastal enclave's economy was on the verge of "immediate collapse."
Abbas also hopes the sanctions on Hamas will pressure Israel to resume the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, deadlocked since 2014, the media reports suggested.
Meanwhile, Palestinian Foreign Minister Riad Malki, who is in New York with Abbas, told reporters that the Palestinian leader has had a "change of heart" and will not announce the suspension of the Oslo Accords, as previously planned.
The series of agreements signed in 1993 are the basis on which the Israeli-Palestinian peace process has been negotiated for the past 25 years.
Abbas has threatened to declare the accords null and void several times, which would have effectively ended all peace efforts.
"President Abbas has no intention of closing the door on the possibility of striking peace," Malki said.
Since December of last year, Abbas has refused to engage with American envoys, saying the U.S. could no longer serve as an impartial mediator in Middle East peace talks after the Trump administration officially recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital. Malki noted that Abbas plans to initiate the establishment of an international forum to head the peace efforts instead.
The Palestinian president also plans to petition the U.N. Security Council to declare the Palestinians a "state under occupation" and afford it the various protections available under the U.N. Charter, Malki said.
The Palestinian Authority will continue joining various international organizations as part of its diplomatic offensive against Israel, he noted.
Also Wednesday, Israeli lawmakers slammed Opposition Leader Tzipi Livni (Zionist Union) for meeting with Abbas in New York.
Deputy Minister for Public Diplomacy at the Prime Minister's Office Michael Oren lambasted Livni for "chasing after a man who refuses to make peace."
"The meeting between Opposition Leader Tzipi Livni and Abbas says a lot about the Israeli Left," Oren tweeted. "They pursue meetings with a Holocaust denier, a man who gives anti-Semitic speeches, pays stipends to terrorists who murder Jews, sues Israel in The Hague and, above all, refuses to make peace."
Likud MK Anat Berko also criticized Livni, saying that "at a time when the U.S. government, and especially President Donald Trump, stand by Israel and the truth, Livni has chosen to undermine government policy."
