2/23/2005: Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas intervened in the dispute between parliament and his prime minister, and persuaded legislators from his Fatah Party to support a new Cabinet. Lawmakers had objected to his first list because it was seen by them as being stacked with political cronies of the late Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat. Several legislators had said they wanted to push Prime Minister Ahmed Qorei out and would not support any Cabinet he proposed.

2/10/2005: Abbas has sacked several top security commanders in the Gaza Strip follow a salvo of Hamas mortars fired at Israelis in Gaza. The militant group said it was retaliating for the death of a Gaza man killed by Israeli fire overnight.

On Tuesday February 8th 2005, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas meet with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in Sharm El-Sheikh Egypt and announced an end to four years of hostilities. While many Palestinians were guardedly optimistic, others said they saw nothing new, having grown tired of summits that have become meaningless by their abundance. "It's the same old same old. So many summits have come and gone. Besides, it is only security related, nothing more. And if there is no binding agenda, the summit will fail. This is just a delaying tactic being used by Sharon," said 38-year-old Nahla al-Natur. "We have so many decisions in the past-why doesn't the international community force Israel to abide by them instead of coming up with new summits?"
Shortly after the announcement of the ceasefire, Hamas was adamant about making clear their position regarding the outcome of the summit. A Hamas representative told the Associated Press that "the talk about what the leader of the Palestinian Authority called a cessation of acts of violence is not binding on the resistance because this is a unilateral stance and was not the outcome of an intra-Palestinian dialogue as has been agreed previously" The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine said Wednesday no cease-fire with Israel has yet been reached among Palestinians. A PFLP statement released in Amman said the various Palestinian factions did not make any commitments to the Palestinian Authority to end hostilities and were still waiting for Israel to respond to their political demands.
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