Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. Photo: World Economic Forum via Wikimedia Commons.

JNS.org – Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas is arranging to meet with Ismail Haniyeh, the top leader of the Gaza-ruling terror group Hamas, a senior official from Abbas’s Fatah party stated last Friday.

“We are actually working on arranging [a meeting],” Fatah Central Committee member Azzam al-Ahmad told the Lebanon-based and Hezbollah-affiliated Al Mayadeen media network, without confirming when and where the meeting would occur.

Abbas last met with the top Palestinian terror leader in Qatar in October 2016. Reports of the potential meeting between Abbas and Haniyeh come after Hamas and Fatah agreed in November to delay the full implementation of a Palestinian unity deal that would see control of Gaza transferred to the PA.

The power transfer was originally scheduled to be implemented Dec. 1, but was delayed in order to allow the rival factions time to “complete arrangements,” according to Palestinian officials.

Following the Trump administration’s Dec. 6 recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, the factions issued calls for a renewed violent Palestinian uprising. Haniyeh urged a new intifada and said various Palestinian factions should “unite” for the sake of “Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa,” referring to the mosque located on the Temple Mount compound. Abbas’s Fatah party encouraged violent protests and “days of rage” throughout December.