RAMALLAH, June 12 (Xinhua) -- Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah party nominated the prime minister of the West Bank- based government to head a unity government that would be formed in agreement with Hamas, which rejected the nomination.
When Fatah's Central Committee met Saturday evening in Ramallah, it decided to nominate Salam Fayyad, the western-backed prime minister, to lead the new technocratic government that is supposed to rule the West Bank and the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, Abbas Zaki, a member of the Central Committee, told Xinhua on Sunday.
However, Mushier Al-Masri, a Hamas official in Gaza, said also on Sunday that his movement "has no possibility to accept Fayyad's nomination because he is an undesirable personality for the Palestinian people."
Fayyad was appointed to lead the West Bank government after Hamas routed pro-Abbas forces and took over Gaza after a brief civil war in June 2007. Fayyad is respected for his transparent financial policies. more
Until now, the besieged Gaza Strip has stayed free of the novel coronavirus spreading across the world. As the Gaza Strip has been under a stringent Israeli-led blockade for nearly 13 years, the spread of the coronavirus - officially known as COVID-19 - has become the topic of discussion for many Palestinians, with some joking that the blockade was preventing them from being exposed.But as authorities in the coastal Palestinian enclave gear up to contain any potential outbreak, serious questions have arisen about the risks and implications of such a scenario. But given its already difficult humanitarian situation and high population density, an outbreak in the Gaza Strip could prove to be catastrophic, health officials have warned. "If the virus enters Gaza and spreads, it will get out of hand," Gaza Ministry of Health spokesperson Majdi Thuhair told Middle East Eye, as he explained that a severe shortage of resources and personnel would make it near impossible
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