Palestinian PM submits resignation to Abbas

Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh chairs a cabinet meeting in the West Bank city of Ramallah on February 20, 2024, amid ongoing battles between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas in Gaza. (Photo by Jaafar ASHTIYEH / AFP)

Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh on Monday announced the resignation of his government which rules parts of the occupied West Bank.

“I submit the government’s resignation to Mr President (Mahmud Abbas),” Shtayyeh said, adding it comes in the wake of the “developments related to the aggression against the Gaza Strip and the escalation in the West Bank and Jerusalem”.

He also called for “new governmental and political measures” amid the ongoing war in the Gaza Strip.

“The next stage and its challenges require new governmental and political measures that take into account the new reality in the Gaza Strip,” he said, as he called for inter-Palestinian consensus and the “extension of the (Palestinian) Authority’s rule over the entire land of Palestine”.

Shtayyeh’s comments come as US pressure grows on Abbas to shake up the Palestinian Authority and begin work on a political structure that can govern a Palestinian state following the war.