Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday condemned Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas for signing a unity government agreement with Hamas earlier in the day in the Qatari capital Doha.
"It's either peace with Hamas or peace with Israel," Netanyahu was quoted as saying by Israeli media.
According to the deal, signed in the presence of Qatar Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, a unified transitional government headed by Abbas will be formed for the West Bank and Gaza Strip. But Netanyahu says the deal broke the existing Oslo Accord between the Palestinians and Israel.
"Hamas is a terror organization that strives for the elimination of Israel, and leaning on Iranian support," Netanyahu told a Likud party meeting. "I have said many times before that the Palestinian Authority must choose between an alliance with Hamas and peace with Israel," he said, adding that "Hamas and peace doesn't go together."
The Qatar deal comes after the failure of a series of exploratory talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority held in the Jordanian capital Amman two seeks ago.
Netanyahu said efforts were made in recent weeks to get the long-stalled peace talks back on track. "If Abu-Mazen (Abbas) is to fulfill what was agreed upon in Doha, he then chooses to abandon the road to peace and to team up with Hamas," he said noting that the Hamas had never accepted the international community's demands to abandon terror. "Not only it did not abandon terror, it is arming itself in order to carry out even deadlier terror," Netanyahu alleged.
According to the deal, a new Palestinian government is expected to be formed within the next few weeks, with Abbas as the Prime Minister, the Al-Jazeera TV channel reported. The interim government will prepare for Presidential and Parliamentary elections, and oversee reconstruction work in the Gaza Strip.
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