Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas vowed to return to the Gaza Strip even at the risk of his own life in a speech before Turkish lawmakers on Thursday, AFP reported.
“I have decided to go to Gaza with other brothers from the Palestinian leadership,” Abbas boasted. “I will do that. Even if this would cost my life. Our life is not more worthy than the life of a child."
He added, “Gaza is ours as a whole. We don’t accept any solution that would divide our territories. There cannot be a Palestinian state without Gaza. Our people will not surrender.”
Abbas's Palestinian Authority is governed by his Fatah party, which was kicked out of Gaza in a violent coup by Hamas in 2007, dividing the costal enclave from the PA for the last 17 years.
Multiple attempts to form a unity government to unite the territories have failed over the last two decades.