Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas held a rare video call meeting with rival factions on Thursday as they sought to present a united front over Israel and the United Arab Emirates’ deal to normalize ties.
It is rare for Islamist Hamas and Abbas’s secular Fatah faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization to have such high-level contacts after years of in-fighting.
“Our meeting comes at a very dangerous stage, in which our national cause faces various plots and dangers,” Abbas said on Thursday.
“In order to stand together in the trench of confrontation and peaceful popular resistance to the occupation, I invite you here to agree on the formation of a national leadership.”