In the past several weeks, the Palestinian Authority (PA) president has cut off fuel and medical supplies to the Gaza Strip, ceased contributing to Gaza’s electric bills, and instructed his officials not to issue referrals for seriously ill Gazans to be transported to Israeli or West Bank Palestinian hospitals for treatment. The last measure is reportedly responsible for the deaths of four children. Typically, the PA has blamed Israel for the human suffering involved. Abbas’s recent policies, Bassam Tawil notes, contrast sharply with nearly a decade of grudging cooperation with Hamas on administrative matters; he explains the thinking behind the abrupt shift:
[Abbas] is . . . apparently deeply worried that his political rival, [the former Fatah official] Mohamed Dahlan, and Hamas are close to forming an alliance against him. In recent days there have been reports that Hamas may allow Dahlan to return to the Gaza Strip to head a new Palestinian government that would be funded and backed by some Gulf countries and Egypt, all of which are disillusioned with Abbas.
Furthermore, Abbas reads the move as a sign of Hamas’s effort to turn the Gaza Strip into an independent and sovereign Palestinian state, leaving him as the president of a mini-state in parts of the West Bank only. Such a move would seriously undermine his claim that he is the president of all Palestinians, including the two-million residents of the Gaza Strip. He can hardly tell the world that he wants a Palestinian state on the pre-1967 lines when he cannot even return to his private home in Gaza. . . .
Israeli steps fly in the face of Abbas’s ruthless measures. Just this week, about 300 Palestinians from the Gaza Strip were issued permits by Israel to leave Gaza while thousands of tons of equipment and goods were allowed in. . . . [But by blaming Gaza’s problems on Israel], Abbas is doing double “duty”: punishing his people in the Gaza Strip while further blackening the name of Israel. These false accusations accomplish even more: they encourage Palestinians to step up their murder sprees against Israelis and feed the campaign in the international arena to delegitimize and demonize Israel and Jews.
Read more on Gatestone: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/10598/palestinian-child-victims