Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has sworn in a new unity government, agreed upon by rival factions Fatah and Hamas.
The government will be headed by Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah, and includes 17 '' politically independent ministers'', five of them from Gaza.
It will be tasked with holding elections within six months.
Abbas praised the new government saying on Monday, "Today, with the formation of a national consensus government, we announce the end of a Palestinian division that has greatly damaged our national case."
On the eve of the announcement, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged world leaders not to recognize the unity government ‘’of which Hamas is a part and which rests on Hamas,’ saying it will strengthen terror not peace.
‘’Hamas is a terrorist organization that calls for the destruction of Israel and the international community must not embrace it. This will not strengthen peace, it will strengthen terrorism,’’ he said at the weekly cabinet meeting on Sunday.
The agreement last April between Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah faction and Hamas to form a unity government prompted Israel to suspend peace talks with the Palestinian Authority given that Hamas remains committed to Israel’s destruction.
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has since then clarified that there can be no peace negotiations with a government backed by Hamas, unless the organisation itself repudiates violence and embraces peace.
International leaders, including those from the United States and Europe, have made clear that a new Palestinian government must adhere to the conditions set out by the Middle East Quartet; namely to recognise Israel, renounce violence and adhere to previous Israel-Palestinian agreements.
The EU has welcomed the Palestinian reconciliation accord while the US has said it will formulate is position toward the new government after it is formed.
Hamas’s Prime Minister in Gaza Ismael Haniyeh, said last week that his organisation would not endorse such guidelines, telling reporters that the “resistance that liberated the Gaza Strip is also capable of liberating the West Bank.”
Hamas is listed by the US and the European Union as a terrorist organization.