RAMALLAH (AFP) – Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas has appointed Mohammed Mustafa, a long-trusted adviser on economic affairs, as Prime Minister, the official Wafa news agency said on Thursday.
Mustafa’s appointment comes less than three weeks after his predecessor Mohammed Shtayyeh, resigned, citing the need for change after the October 7 attack.
The 69-year-old now faces the task of forming a new government for the Palestinian Authority, which has limited powers in parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Since 2007, control of the Palestinian territories has been divided between Abbas’s Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
Mustafa, who studied at George Washington University in the United States (US), is an independent executive committee member of the Palestine Liberation Organisation – dominated by the ruling Fatah movement.
He has served as deputy prime minister for economic affairs, held a board seat at the Palestine Investment Fund and worked in a number of senior positions at the World Bank.
He has also advised the Kuwaiti government and the sovereign wealth fund of Saudi Arabia, the Public Investment Fund. Mustafa was also involved in reconstruction efforts in Gaza after Israel’s 2014 invasion.
Mustafa’s appointment represents an attempt to bolster Palestinian institutions and “close some loopholes in the Palestinian Authority”.
