Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Thursday called on the Palestinians to topple Hamas' regime in the Gaza Strip which was taken over forcibly by the Islamic movement in mid June.
Abbas made the call in a written statement sent to the media on the occasion of the "Independence Day" which marks late President Yasser Arafat's 1988 announcement of "the creation of a Palestinian statehood, living alongside Israel with east Jerusalem as a capital, on the lands that Israel occupied in 1967."
"Our fate is to involve in a hard struggle to end the (Israeli) occupation, but at the same time, we have to bring down this gang that seized Gaza by force and is now bargaining with the suffering of the Palestinian people who only got criminal actions from Hamas in parallel with the reinforcement of Israeli siege," said Abbas.
He promised to work hard to end the suffering of the Gazans by providing them with all humanitarian needs and trying to find a solution for the people stranded inside or outside the enclave.
Abbas went on to say that Hamas' acts in Gaza, especially the crackdown against his Fatah movement's supporters, have given Israel a "new pretext to weaken the Palestinian political stance."
Seven Palestinians were killed on Monday when Hamas forces attacked a rally of pro-Fatah supporters who gathered in Gaza to commemorate the third anniversary of President Arafat's death.
But Hamas held Fatah responsible for triggering the clash between Fatah supporters and Hamas police forces, saying Fatah gunmen fired at the police first.
Meanwhile, Abbas said that the Palestinian people "are determined, more than any time else, to make and achieve independence despite difficulties and obstacles."
Abbas continued that the Palestinian people have "grabbed recognition from the world through the sacrifice of hundreds of thousands of its people. And the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), which our late President Yasser Arafat has led, had become the symbol of all meaning of freedom for all the nations."
"We are determined to build our statehood ... where we live free in an independent and sovereign home," Abbas said.
Concerning an upcoming U.S.-hosed peace summit, Abbas said they have worked hard to make the international peace conference to beheld later this month in Annapolis "a new decisive turning point towards a fair solution securing our people's rights."
He added that the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) was in contact with the international community, including the Islamic states, to truly prepare for the conference and the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, which will launch afterwards.
"The occupation doesn't provide security for anyone ... the peace and the relations between neighbors, based on equality and mutual respect, are the ways to end the ages of wars, pains and bloodshed," Abbas said, calling on Israel to stop building settlements, end the siege and release the prisoners."
The circles of violence, killings and assassinations should be acts of the past," he said.
Source: Xinhua
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