Palestinian Authority announces cabinet reshuffle

The Palestinian Authority (PA) announced a partial reshuffle of the national consensus government cabinet on Thursday, local media reported.

Palestinian news agency Maan reported that President Mahmoud Abbas had moved to reshuffle the government rather than dismantle it, as was originally announced in June but quickly denied by Abbas.

The Hamas movement called the reshuffle “unconstitutional and outside consensus," referring to it as a “coup,” the report said.

New ministers will be sworn in on Friday in Ramallah at the presidential headquarters.

According to Maan, the new minister of local governance will by Hussein al-Araj, formerly deputy minister of local governance and governor of the Nablus and Hebron districts,

Sabri Saydam, formerly minister of communications and information technology, will serve as the new education minister.

Samih al-Abed will be minister of transportation. He formerly served as deputy minister of public works.

Sufian Sultan will be minister of agriculture, while Abeer Odeh will serve as minister of national economy. 

Nineteen ministry positions remain unchanged. In the current government, four ministers hold positions as heads of multiple ministries.

Officials said in June that Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah, who also serves as interior minister in the unity government, would be stepping down. It is unclear if this is still to be the case under the reshuffle.

The Fatah-led PA and the Hamas-run government in Gaza signed a reconciliation agreement in April 2014 and in June a national consensus government was sworn in.

But amid a tense financial dispute regarding government employees and later the bloody Israeli offensive on Gaza, the agreement failed to make much of a difference on the ground in the Strip, where Hamas remains the de facto power.

Rival Palestinian political factions Hamas and Fatah have led separate governments in Gaza and the West Bank since 2007.