RAMALLAH, March 3, 2018 (WAFA) – Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah renewed on Saturday his call on Hamas to allow the Palestinian government to have actual control on the ground in the Gaza Strip, which Hamas has been running for over 10 years, in order to consolidate the intra-Palestinian national reconciliation.

“I reiterate my call on Hamas for the actual empowerment of the government in the Gaza Strip,” he said during a visit to the Tulkarm town of Anabta in the north of the West Bank.

“These are not conditions, but requirements toward achieving national reconciliation. President Mahmoud Abbas and the government are ready to assume all responsibility toward the Gaza Strip the minute the government is in charge,” he said.

Hamdallah said the executive branch and government are committed to reconciliation and unity, which he said was why the government agreed to include 20,000 Hamas employees in its 2018 budget in order to do away with the last obstacle facing national reconciliation.

He said the government should have full financial control in Gaza through collecting revenues and full control over the crossings. The police and civil defense should also be allowed to enforce law and order while the judiciary should be allowed to do its work and all pre-2007 employees, when the Palestinian Authority ordered all its employees in Gaza not to cooperate with Hamas after its takeover of the Gaza Strip, should be allowed to return to their work places.

M.K.