Discord has erupted again between the West Bank authority of the Palestinian Authority and the Gaza terrorist group Hamas. Instead of presenting an unified government to the UN as part of its request for state recognition the two groups have continued to fight each other over their role in the territory. If the UN were to recognize formally the state of Palestine there does not seem to be a functioning 'unity' government to receive the acknowledgement.
And once again it is the Palestinian people that suffer as a result of their leaderships' failures.
In recent weeks the Hamas-Fatah stand-off has spiraled into violence, although it is not always clear who is behind it. On Friday, bombs exploded at a major Gaza bank used by the unity government to pay most of the 70,000 public sector workers hired before Hamas took over the narrow, coastal enclave.
At the weekend, pictures emerged of Fatah activists in Gaza who said they had been stripped, beaten and left in freezing temperatures by Hamas security men. Hamas, meanwhile, accuses Fatah of rounding up its party members in the West Bank, where the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority (PA) prevails.
.......
Hamas is formally sworn to Israel's destruction and opposes the PA's independence strategy because it would not mean a state in all of historic Palestine and it believes critical issues, such as the right of return for refugees, are not included.
Hani al-Masri, an independent political analyst based in the West Bank, worries that if the Hamas-Fatah tensions are not reined in, the results could be devastating, especially for the people of Gaza, desperate to rebuild their lives after the war.