The Palestinian unity government formed last year in a bid to heal rifts between Hamas and president Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah party resigned on Wednesday, an official said.

“Hamdallah handed his resignation to Abbas and Abbas ordered him to form a new government,” Nimr Hammad, an adviser to Abbas, told AFP, referring to prime minister Rami Hamdallah.

Discussions to form a new government would include consultations with the various Palestinian factions, including Hamas, he said.

However, Abbas’ spokesman, Nabil Abu Rudeineh, told official news agency WAFA that Hamdallah had not handed in his resignation.

Officials have said the planned dissolution of the government, made up of technocrats, had been under discussion for several months because of the cabinet’s inability to operate in the Hamas-dominated Gaza Strip.

Both Hamas and Islamic Jihad have condemned the unilateral dissolution of the government, a decision they say they were not consulted over.

“No one told us anything about any decision to change and no one consulted with us about any change in the unity government. Fatah acted on its own in all regards,” Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri told AFP Wednesday.

Khalid al-Batsh, a senior leader in Islamic Jihad, also condemned the “unilateral” move to dissolve the unity government.

But it also came as Hamas sources said the group was holding separate, indirect talks with Israel on ways to firm up an informal ceasefire agreement that took hold last August, ending a 50-day war in Gaza.

Some have argued that news of the secret talks prompted Abbas to move to dissolve the unity government.

A PLO official said the new government was likely to be one of politicians rather than technocrats. MAANNEWS