Palestinian leader Abbas says elections only after Gaza war ends

Longtime Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has dampened hopes for elections that are years overdue.

Presidential and parliamentary polls should be held within a year after the end of the Gaza war, Abbas said on Friday in Rome, according to the Palestinian news agency WAFA.

There is currently no end in sight to the Gaza war, despite the nominal ceasefire in place since October.

The Palestinian resistance movement Hamas has not yet fulfilled all the points of the first phase of the Gaza peace plan. It remains to be seen whether the second phase can then be successfully implemented.

The focus is on particularly contentious issues such as the disarmament of Hamas.

Abbas, who won the 2005 presidential election in the autonomous territories, has remained in office without being re-elected, resulting in a sharp decline in his popularity.

At 90, he is one of the oldest leaders in the world, surpassed only by Cameroon's 92-year-old President Paul Biya.

The autonomous administration led by Abbas controls parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, but has no power against the Israeli military administration or the expansion of settlements.

In the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian organization Fatah lost control to Hamas in 2007 after a violent power struggle.