Mahmoud Abbas has called Hamas “sons of dogs” in a fiery speech in which he demanded the group release the hostages it is still holding, disarm, and hand over control of Gaza in order to end the war with Israel.
The president of the Palestinian Authority told a meeting in the occupied West Bank that Hamas had given Israel “excuses” to continue its attacks on Gaza, and told it to “release the hostages and be done with it”.
The remarks were the strongest against the group that the president has delivered since the war began 18 months ago.
A Hamas official condemned what he called Abbas’s “derogatory language” towards “a significant proportion… of his own people”.
Last week, the group rejected an Israeli proposal for a new ceasefire in Gaza, which included a demand to disarm in return for a six-week pause in hostilities and the release of 10 of the 59 remaining hostages.
Hamas reiterated that it would hand over all of the hostages in exchange for an end to the war and a full Israeli withdrawal. It also ruled out giving up its weapons.
The PA, which is led by Abbas and dominated by his Fatah movement, has only governed parts of the West Bank since Hamas seized control of Gaza in 2007, a year after it won legislative elections.
The PA’s leadership has regularly insisted it is ready to take over running post-war Gaza. But it has been criticised by Palestinians for not speaking out enough or taking effective action.
Abbas lashed out at Hamas in furious speech to a meeting of the Palestinian Central Council in Ramallah.
“Hamas has given the criminal occupation [Israel] excuses to commit its crimes in the Gaza Strip, the most prominent being the holding of hostages,” he said.
“Sons of dogs, just release whoever you’re holding and be done with it. Shut down their excuses and spare us.”
The president also said Hamas must “hand over” responsibility for Gaza and its weapons to the PA, and transform into a political party.
A member of Hamas’s political bureau, Bassem Naim, criticised Abbas’s decision to “describe a significant and integral part of his own people using derogatory language”, according to AFP news agency.
“Abbas repeatedly and suspiciously lays the blame for the crimes of the occupation and its ongoing aggression on our people,” he added.
Hamas and the PA have been bitterly divided for decades, with their rift ensuring that no unified Palestinian leadership in both the West Bank and Gaza has been able to emerge.
Abbas, 89, is seen as an irrelevance by many Palestinians.
He has remained in power without election for many years, presiding over a PA that is seen by its critics as ineffective at best and corrupt at worst. Hamas has essentially accused it of collaborating with Israel.
In a separate development on Wednesday, Hamas’s military wing released a video showing the Israel-Hungarian hostage Omri Miran, 48, in an underground tunnel.
“On the eve of Holocaust Remembrance Day, when we say ‘Never Again,’ an Israeli citizen cries out for help from Hamas’ tunnels. It is a moral failure for the State of Israel,” his family said in a statement.
Israel started blocking all deliveries of humanitarian aid and commercial supplies to Gaza on 2 March and resumed its offensive two weeks later, saying that the pressure would force Hamas to release the remaining hostages.
Since then, at least 1,928 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.
On Tuesday night, 10 people were killed in an Israeli air strike on a school in the north-eastern Tuffah neighbourhood of Gaza City that was being used as a shelter for displaced families, according to the Hamas-run Civil Defence agency.
A woman who was living at the school with her husband, children and grandchildren said they were asleep when the attack happened.
“We woke up to fire surrounding us from all sides. My daughters suffered burns on their hands and legs. One of the women with us was taken to the hospital, but we still don’t know what her condition is,” she told BBC Arabic’s Gaza Lifeline programme. “Several young people were burned alive.”
“This war has dragged on for nearly two years now. And what has it brought us? Just more death, more suffering,” she added.
The Civil Defence said its first responders also recovered another four bodies from attacks on two homes in the same area.
The Israeli military said on Wednesday that it struck “a gathering of terrorists operating within a Hamas and [Palestinian] Islamic Jihad command and control centre” in the area of the school.
It accused Hamas of using civilians as human shields – an allegation that the group has repeatedly denied.
The UN meanwhile warned that the 52-day Israeli blockade had deprived Gaza’s 2.1 million population of “the basic necessities for human survival”. It has reported a rise in malnutrition and severe shortages of medicines at hospitals.
On Wednesday, the foreign ministers of the UK, France and Germany called on Israel to end the blockade, saying it was “intolerable”.
“We urge Israel to immediately restart a rapid and unimpeded flow of humanitarian aid to Gaza in order to meet the needs of all civilians,” said a joint statement.
They also described as “unacceptable” Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz’s “recent comments politicising humanitarian aid and Israeli plans to remain in Gaza after the war”, adding that Israel was bound under international law to allow aid deliveries.
The Israeli foreign ministry rejected the allegation that aid was being politicised.
It also insisted that the country was acting in full accordance with international law and that there was “no shortage of aid in Gaza” because 25,000 aid lorries had entered during the recent two-month ceasefire.
“Israel is fighting Hamas, which steals humanitarian aid, uses it to rebuild its war machine, and hides behind civilians,” a statement said.
“Hamas started this war, and Hamas is responsible for its continuation and for the suffering of both Palestinians and Israelis. The war can end tomorrow if the hostages are released and Hamas lays down its weapons,” it added.
The Israeli military launched a campaign to destroy Hamas in response to an unprecedented cross-border attack on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.
More than 51,300 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory’s health ministry.
