Battle of Gaza (2007) were boycotted by both Hamas and Islamic Jihad. The election resulted in PLO and Fatah chairman Mahmoud Abbas being elected President to a four-year term. On 8 February 2005 the Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon announced a cease-fire. On 17 March 2005 Hamas endorsed the ceasefire. On 19 March 2005 twelve Palestinian factions, including Fatah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) signed the Palestinian Cairo Declaration, which reaffirmed the status of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) as the sole legitimate
Tarek Fatah from Mumbai to Karachi following the Partition of India in 1947. He was a leftist student leader in the 1960s and 1970s. Although he graduated with a degree in biochemistry from the University of Karachi, Fatah entered journalism as a reporter for the "Karachi Sun" in 1970, and was an investigative journalist for Pakistan Television. He was imprisoned twice by military regimes. In 1977, he was charged with sedition by the General Zia-ul Haq regime and barred from journalism in Pakistan. He left Pakistan and settled in Saudi Arabia, before emigrating to Canada in 1987. Of himself, Fatah asserts: On