The Palestinian Authority’s deputy prime minister said Saturday that President Mahmoud Abbas would be willing to hand control over his government to Hamas if the terror group were to win future general elections.

In an interview with the Saudi news channel Al Arabiya Saturday, Nabil Abu Rudeineh, who also acts as a spokesperson for Abbas, said that the Palestinian people need to find common ground and formulate a unified position and that for the time being “the address for political decisions is the Palestine Liberation Organization and its President Mahmoud Abbas.”

But after the war, the PA “is ready to hold general elections, and if Hamas wins, the president will hand over the Authority.”

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The Palestinian Authority has not held general elections since 2006, when Hamas won a majority of the seats in the legislative council, and subsequently staged a violent coup in the Gaza Strip.

Since the outbreak of the war, various PA officials have called for integrating the political wing of Hamas into a future Palestinian government, claiming that it is an essential component of Palestinian society.

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Elections are seen by many in the international community as a key stage in the reform and revival of the Palestinian Authority, a body perceived as corrupt and ineffectual, in order to boost its legitimacy and potentially enable it to take control over the Gaza Strip after the war.

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A wartime opinion poll in December found 88 percent of Palestinians saying Abbas must resign. At the same time, 44% in the West Bank said they support Hamas, up from just 12% in September. In Gaza, the terror group enjoys 42% support, up from 38% three months ago.

The war erupted on October 7 when some 1,200 people, most of them civilians, were killed by Hamas terrorists who rampaged across southern Israel. Another 253 people, also largely civilians, were abducted and taken into Gaza, where 132 remain.

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Israeli officials have repeatedly stated that their goal in the war sparked by Hamas’s October 7 onslaught is the eradication of the terror group and the return of all the hostages.

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‘Deplorable double standards’

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The ministry defined the decision as “highly politicized, disproportionate and unjustified,” especially in light of the fact that the agency’s Commissioner General Philippe Lazzarini said an independent investigation would be launched into the Israeli claims.

Echoing comments that Lazzarini made Saturday night, the ministry said it sees the decision to suspend funding to UNRWA as a form of “collective punishment,” stressing that the agency is about to run out of money and will not be able to provide assistance to Palestinian refugees throughout the region.

Israel’s Foreign Minister Israel Katz has called for Lazzarini to quit and said the body “must be replaced with agencies dedicated to genuine peace and development” after Gaza’s bloodiest war.

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