Abbas uses rally to attack rival Hamas

PALESTINIAN President Mahmoud Abbas used a rally commemorating the deceased Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat yesterday to lash out at his rivals from the Islamic group Hamas.

Mr Abbas condemned Hamas’s violent takeover of the Gaza Strip and demanded the militant group “retract its black coup” before there can be any dialogue between rival Palestinian factions.

“There are those who stabbed our democracy and preferred the military coup to the path of national dialogue,” said Mr Abbas. Hamas “cannot erase Arafat’s achievements,” he added.