Palestinian President Abbas pledges elections, reform at Fatah conference
Key takeaways
- Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has been unanimously re-elected leader of the Fatah movement.
- “We renew our full commitment to continuing work on implementing all the reform measures we pledged,” Abbas said in an address.
- Late on Thursday, Abbas was unanimously re-elected as leader of the Fatah movement and, by extension, will remain head of the central committee, according to the Palestinian news agency Wafa.
Why this matters: an international story with cross-border implications worth tracking.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has been unanimously re-elected leader of the Fatah movement.
xwhatsapp-strokecopylinkgoogle Add Al Jazeera on Googleinfo Mahmoud Abbas delivers a speech during the eighth Fatah Conference in the Israeli-occupied West Bank city of Ramallah on May 14, 2026 [Jaafar Ashtiyeh/AFP]By Mariamne Everett and AFPPublished On 14 May 202614 May 2026Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has pledged to reform the Palestinian Authority (PA) at a Fatah party conference in the occupied West Bank, pledging to hold long-delayed presidential and parliamentary elections.
Fatah kicked off the three-day Eighth General Conference in Ramallah on Thursday to elect a new central committee, its highest leadership body, for the first time in 10 years as it faces existential challenges in the wake of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.