Hussein al-Sheikh is a veteran leader of Abbas’s Fatah movement.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has appointed a close aide as vice president, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) said.
Hussein al-Sheikh was named “deputy [vice president] of the PLO leadership,” Wasel Abu Yousef, a member of the PLO’s Executive Committee, said on Saturday.
Abbas, 89, created the vice presidency position during the 32nd session of the Palestinian Central Council in Ramallah earlier this week.
During the session, Abbas reaffirmed his commitment to initiating a “comprehensive national dialogue”, which aims to engage “all Palestinian factions to achieve reconciliation and reinforce national unity,” the official Palestinian news agency WAFA reported.
Abbas also informed the committee on “upcoming political efforts aimed at halting the ongoing Israeli aggression and war of genocide in the Gaza Strip”.
These include ensuring the rapid entry of humanitarian and medical aid, full Palestinian governance over Gaza and pushing for a total Israeli withdrawal from the enclave as “a step towards launching a political process to end the occupation and realize an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital”, according to WAFA.
The appointment follows years of international pressure to reform the PLO and comes as Arab and Western powers envision an expanded role for the Palestinian Authority (PA) in the Gaza Strip’s post-war governance.
Founded in 1964, the PLO is tasked with negotiating and signing international treaties on the Palestinian people’s behalf, while the PA is responsible for governance in limited parts of the occupied Palestinian territory.
The PLO is an umbrella organisation comprising several Palestinian factions, but not the Hamas and Islamic Jihad groups.
Sheikh, 64, is a veteran leader of Abbas’s Fatah movement, which dominates the PA, and is considered close to the president.
Marwan Bishara, Al Jazeera’s senior political analyst, said Sheikh’s role in the PA has included being “in charge of security coordination with the Israeli occupation”.
Sheikh has been “groomed for the past 18 years in this relationship between Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority and Israel”, Bishara added.
“Israel knows and trusts him more than they know and trust Abbas himself. And Abbas, as we all know, has been the ultimate pragmatic/moderate leader within the Palestinian Authority, much to the liking of the United States and European Union, even if he’s not to the liking of [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu and his ilk.”
Analyst Aref Jaffal said the new role was created to pave the way for someone to take the reins from Abbas, “as there are many things the Palestinian situation requires”.
“The Palestinian political system is already miserable, so I believe that all these arrangements are a prelude to creating a successor to Abbas,” Jaffal, director of the Al-Marsad Election Monitoring Center, told AFP.
The PLO Executive Committee is set to hold another meeting next Saturday to appoint a new secretary-general.
