Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh of the Palestinian Authority, the body that administers part of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, submitted the resignation of his cabinet on Monday, according to the authority’s official news agency.
The decision follows diplomatic efforts involving the United States and Arab states, including Saudi Arabia, to persuade the authority to overhaul itself in a way that would allow it to take over administration of Gaza after the war there ends.
But it was unclear whether Mr Shtayyeh’s resignation would be enough to restore power or persuade Israel to let him rule Gaza. President Mahmoud Abbas, the authority’s most senior leader, will remain in place along with his security chiefs. And after accepting Mr Shtayyeh’s resignation, Mr Abbas asked him to remain interim prime minister while a replacement was sought.
Israeli leaders had strongly hinted that they would not allow the authority’s existing leadership to run Gaza. American and Arab leaders hoped the new leadership could make Israel more likely to cede administrative control of Gaza in the first place – a framework Mr Shtayyeh discussed in his resignation statement.
“The next stage and its challenges require new governmental and political arrangements that take into account the emerging reality in the Gaza Strip,” Mr. Shtayyeh wrote, according to Wafa, the authority’s news agency. Those challenges include the push to “extend Palestinian Authority sovereignty over the entire land of Palestine,” he added.
Without a functioning parliament within the areas controlled by the authority, Mr. Abbas remains the key figure in power, regardless of Mr. Shtayyeh’s fate. Mr. Abbas has long ruled by decree and wields widespread influence over the judiciary and prosecutorial system. Any prime minister works under the authority of Mr Abbas and has little leeway to make his own decisions.
According to diplomats briefed on his thinking, Mr. Abbas’s preferred prime ministerial candidate is Mohammed Mustafa, a longtime economic adviser who is considered a member of his inner circle.
But analysts predicted it could be weeks before a successor is announced.
By keeping Mr. Shtayyeh in place as caretaker, Mr. Abbas is “essentially buying time,” said Ibrahim Dalalsha, director of the Horizon Center for Political Studies and Media Outreach, a political analysis group based in Ramallah, in the West Bank.
It allows Mr. Abbas to signal to foreign powers that he has embarked on an overhaul, while effectively delaying any substantive changes and giving himself more time to convince domestic allies and foreign financiers of Mr. Mustafa’s virtues. said Mr. Dalalsha.
“Many governments around the world – including Arab governments – have made their financial support for the Palestinian Authority conditional on the creation of a new Palestinian government that is accountable, effective, inclusive,” he said.
The creation of a caretaker government “in itself does not cause concrete changes overnight, but it signals a willingness and seriousness, at least at the political level, to move in that direction,” Mr. Dalalsa added.
The authority was created during the Oslo peace process in the 1990s, and was envisioned by Palestinians and their supporters as a one-state government-in-waiting.
Instead, the peace process collapsed and the state never materialized. The authority was left with only limited autonomy in approximately 40% of the West Bank. A quarter of a century later, polls show that Palestinians mostly see it as authoritarian and corrupt.
Although many Israelis accuse the authority of doing too little to combat Palestinian terrorism, Palestinians see its security services as an extension of Israel’s security apparatus because of their regular crackdowns on Palestinian militants and dissidents.
Aaron Boxerman contributed reporting.
