Abbas to hold referendum on July 31: Officials

Ramallah (West Bank), June 9: Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will hold a referendum on a statehood proposal that implicitly recognises Israel on July 31, after Hamas rejected the plan, officials said today.

Abbas will issue a decree on Saturday formally announcing the referendum date, said the officials close to the president.

After initially calling the referendum earlier this week, Abbas had given the government led by the Hamas Islamists a few more days to reconsider its position on a manifesto penned by Palestinian prisoners in an Israeli jail.

''The Palestinian people in Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza Strip will be invited to take part in a referendum on the basis of the prisoner's document on Monday, July 31,'' one of the officials told Reuters.

He said the referendum would ask Palestinians one question: Do you agree with the prisoners' document or not? A referendum, with opinion polls suggesting most Palestinians support the proposal, would be seen as a confidence vote on the Hamas government, whose election led the West and Israel to cut off funds to the Palestinian Authority.

Hamas swept to power in January elections and has been locked in a power struggle with Abbas ever since. It rejects the proposal.

The manifesto implicitly recognises Israel by calling for a Palestinian state on all of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, which Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war.

Abbas had set a Tuesday deadline for Hamas to embrace the manifesto but delayed a looming showdown after what officials said were appeals by Arab leaders.

Hamas, which seeks to destroy Israel, has said a referendum would be illegal so soon after the parliamentary elections.

Israel rejects the manifesto. It has long insisted on keeping large Jewish settlement blocs in the occupied West Bank.

Reuters