Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas says keeping the captives provides Israel with justification for its attacks on Gaza.
Hamas has condemned remarks made by Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas, who urged the Palestinian group ruling Gaza to release Israeli captives and lay down arms.
Senior Hamas official Basem Naim said on Thursday that Abbas’s remarks made a day earlier were “insulting”.
“Abbas repeatedly and suspiciously lays the blame for the crimes of the occupation and its ongoing aggression on our people,” he said.
Abbas on Wednesday urged Hamas to free all captives, saying keeping them provided Israel with “excuses” to attack Gaza.
“Hamas has given the criminal occupation excuses to commit its crimes in the Gaza Strip, the most prominent being the holding of hostages,” Abbas said at a meeting in Ramallah, the PA’s seat in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
“I’m the one paying the price, our people are paying the price, not Israel. My brother, just hand them over.”
“Every day there are deaths,” Abbas said. “You sons of dogs, hand over what you have and get us out of this” ordeal, he added, levelling a harsh Arabic epithet at Hamas.
Long rift
There have been deep political and ideological divisions between Abbas’s Fatah party and Hamas for nearly 20 years.
Abbas and the PA have often accused Hamas of undermining Palestinian unity, while Hamas has criticised the former for collaborating with Israel and cracking down on West Bank dissent.
The Palestinian Mujahideen Movement, which split from Abbas’s Fatah in the 2000s, issued a statement on Telegram on Wednesday condemning Abbas’s remarks.
“We strongly condemn the offensive statements made by President Abbas during the Central Council meeting regarding the resistance and our people’s resistance fighters, disregarding the sacrifices and struggle of our people and ignoring the suffering and ongoing sacrifices of the prisoners,” read the statement.
“We condemn the PA leadership’s continued pursuit of this discourse, which criminalizes the resistance and absolves the occupation of its ongoing crimes against our people for decades, especially the genocidal war against Gaza, the annexation and Judaization of the West Bank and Jerusalem, and the severe suffering endured by our valiant prisoners.”
The movement also called on Abbas to issue an apology for his remarks.
“We call on the President of the Palestinian Authority to apologize for this offensive speech and reverse all steps that reinforce division and align with Zionist will. We call on him to return to the embrace of the people and their choices and to cease pursuing the absurd path of surrender and compromise.”
Since Israel’s campaign in Gaza resumed on March 18, at least 1,928 people have been killed in Gaza, bringing the total death toll since the war erupted to at least 51,305, according to the enclave’s Ministry of Health.
Talks on a new ceasefire have so far been fruitless, and a Hamas delegation is in Cairo for renewed negotiations with Egyptian and Qatari mediators.