Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said on Tuesday in a speech after Israel's withdrawal from the Gaza Strip that it was not an end to occupation and that Israel must also withdraw from the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
At the same time, he delivered a clear warning to any militant groups seeking to challenge his authority that everybody must obey the law. The militants claim credit for the Israeli pullout, completed on Monday.
"The withdrawal of the occupation army and the settlers from the Gaza Strip doesn't mean in any way that occupation has come to an end," he said in the speech broadcast on Palestinian television.
"Today Gaza, tomorrow the West Bank and (Arab East) Jerusalem," he said, referring to the Palestinian demand for a state in all those territories captured in the 1967 Middle East war.
One of Abbas's first challenges is to end lawlessness in the Gaza Strip, with its plethora of armed factions that sprang up during the uprising against Israel since 2000. He said all must work under one authority.
"We will not allow anybody to destroy this achievement under any justification. This is the future of our sons. Today there is no room for personal agendas," he said.
"We will not allow the armed chaos and people taking the law into their own hands or kidnappings or attacking public property."
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