Hamas issued the following statement on April 24, 2025, published on Resistance News Network.
The central council meeting deepens division, entrenches isolation and disappoints our people’s hopes for unity.
The Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) affirms that the outcomes of the Palestinian Central Council meeting, held in Ramallah on April 23 and 24, 2025, amounted to a profound national disappointment.
Palestinian Resistance groups
It ignored the hopes and aspirations of the Palestinian people, both at home and abroad, who are seeking national unity in the face of the greatest threats to their existence and cause, foremost among them the genocidal war waged by the occupation against Gaza and the escalating Judaization settlement activity in the West Bank and Al-Quds.
This meeting came after 18 months of massacres, destruction and starvation, without its results or decisions bearing the slightest national response to the role required of official Palestinian institutions in confronting the zionist aggression, working to halt the war of extermination in Gaza and confronting the desecration of the West Bank and its refugee camps, the displacement of our people, the strengthening of settlements and attempts to Judaize Al-Quds and Al-Aqsa Mosque, all in implementation of a plan to resolve the conflict in favor of the occupation. Rather, this meeting represented a new stage in the consolidation of isolation, exclusion and separation from the reality of our steadfast, resistant people.
This meeting was boycotted by major national factions and forces, most notably the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the National Initiative Movement, and the Alliance of Palestinian Forces.
In addition, the Democratic Front withdrew from the first session, along with a number of independent national figures. This was a clear message of rejection of the coup against the spirit of national unity, the confiscation of the will of the Palestinian people and attempts to dominate the institutions of the Palestine Liberation Organization.
It also called for the restoration of unity and the formulation of a single, comprehensive national strategy that embraces resistance in all its forms against the zionist occupation.
This meeting also blatantly ignored the outcomes of previous national dialogues, most notably the Beijing Agreement [signed on July 23, 2024], which stipulated the formation of a national consensus government as a first step toward reuniting the Palestinian ranks and building Palestinian political institutions based on partnership and genuine representation.
We also express our condemnation of the president of the Palestinian Authority’s blatant and unacceptable insults and abuses against Palestinian resistance forces during the Council sessions. This comes at a time when the national situation requires greater support for the resistance, rather than defaming it or holding it responsible for the crimes of the zionist occupation.
We, in Hamas, reject the continuation of this unilateral path and affirm that rebuilding the Palestine Liberation Organization on national and democratic foundations, activating a unified leadership framework and holding comprehensive elections at home and abroad are the true paths to restoring national unity and building a liberation project that expresses the will of our Palestinian people.
Our Palestinian people deserve a unified national leadership that rises to the level of their great sacrifices, is faithful to their rights and is loyal to the blood of the martyrs, not a leadership that coordinates security with the occupation, submits to external dictates, is governed by a logic of unilateralism and reproduces failure and division.