The appointment of a close ally of Mahmoud Abbas as Palestinian prime minister will “strengthen divisions” and prove the Palestinian Authority’s “disconnection from reality,” Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other groups condemned on Friday, AFP reported.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas appointed economist Mohammad Mustafa as prime minister on Thursday in an effort to shore up his weakened leadership and restore credibility.

“Forming a new government without a national consensus will exacerbate divisions” between Palestinians, the Islamist movement Hamas warned in a statement posted on its website.

Islamic Jihad and the PFLP (Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Marxist), two groups that Israel also considers terrorists, also signed the declaration.

The appointment of a new prime minister demonstrates “the deep crisis in the Palestinian Authority and its disconnection from reality,” according to the statement, which condemned the “gulf between the Authority and the Palestinian people.”

Mustafa, 69, previously headed the Palestine Investment Fund. A former economic adviser to President Abbas, he held senior positions at the World Bank in Washington for 15 years.

Since the June 2007 fratricidal clashes, Palestinian leadership has been divided between the Palestinian Authority of Mahmoud Abbas, which exercises limited power in the West Bank, a territory occupied by Israel since 1967, and Hamas, which is in power in the war-torn Gaza Strip. .

In recent months, many Palestinians have criticized 88-year-old President Abbas, last elected in 2005, for his “impotence” in the face of Israeli raids in the Gaza Strip.

The question of the role of the Palestinian Authority at the end of the war remains a big mystery because of its limited influence and the refusal of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to envision a future Palestinian state.