RAMALLAH — Mahmoud Abbas dissolved the Palestinian Unity Government on June 17, 2015. The government had been formed just over a year earlier, on June 2, 2014, as a joint administration between the rival Fatah and Hamas factions.
Abbas, the Palestinian Authority President, had announced the formation of the unity government on Palestine TV, stating that it would serve as an interim government until elections were held. The government, led by then-Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah, held its first cabinet meeting in Ramallah on June 3, 2014. However, it was established without approval from the Palestinian Authority's Legislative Council, despite the 2003 Amended Basic Law requiring such confidence and approval for legitimacy under Articles 65–67.
The formation of the unity government drew immediate criticism from Israel and the United States. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ceased two-state solution talks with Abbas following the government's creation. Then-U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry expressed concern about Hamas's role in any such government.
This was not the first time Abbas had dissolved a unity government with Hamas. In March 2007, he and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh had formed a joint government, which Abbas dissolved less than three months later on June 14, 2007. He cited Hamas's forcible takeover of the Gaza Strip between June 10 and June 14 of that year as justification for the dissolution.
The 2015 dissolution marked the formal end of the 2014 unity arrangement, which had aimed to reunify the West Bank and Gaza under a single Palestinian administration. Abbas’s decision effectively reverted governance to separate authorities, with Fatah continuing to administer the West Bank and Hamas maintaining control in Gaza.
Abbas chaired the first meeting of the Palestinian unity government on June 2, 2014, the day of its formation.