Why has Palestinian Authority’s Mahmoud Abbas nominated a successor now?
Al Jazeera
Rawhi Fattouh has been named to take over as interim president if Abbas steps down due to ill health.
Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority (PA), has nominated Rawhi Fattouh to take over if he cannot continue in his post due to poor health.
As Israel continued its war on Gaza – killing more than 44,000 people and injuring and starving countless others – criticism of Abbas and his presidency heightened.
Abbas, 89, who also leads the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO), was elected president of the PA in 2005, a year after then-leader Yasser Arafat died.
So why is he nominating a successor now and how would the succession process go?
The PA was established as an interim Palestinian government under the 1993 Oslo Accords, which then-Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin signed with Arafat.
