Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said in private meetings in recent days that he intends to resign from his post in the near future, Palestinian sources told Haaretz. The remarks come after Thursday's announcement that he would not seek reelection as Palestinian president.

Abbas' closed-door statements on a possible resignation were made to an Egyptian diplomatic delegation visiting the Palestinian Authority's Muqata compound in Ramallah. The delegation was led by Yasser Othman, Egypt's new ambassador to the PA, who was visiting Abbas to try to convince him to reconsider his decision to step down from the presidency.

The visitors were surprised to see that Abbas was not amenable to reconsidering the decision, and appeared intent on quitting his post.

Abbas' decision not to seek reelection will not necessarily hold, as pundits expect the Palestinian leader to remain in his post for the foreseeable future, given the ongoing tension between Hamas and Fatah, which could push the election back indefinitely.

Fatah, Abbas' movement, has also refrained from naming a successor to take on the president's role. Still, Abbas' resignation could reshuffle the cards in Ramallah, leaving the Palestinian political arena in disarray. It remains unclear whether Abbas also intends to quit his other positions, as chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization working committee and of the Fatah movement itself.

Meanwhile, other Palestinian sources said recently that even if Abbas tried to resign, he would likely be kept in the position as a "temporary president" for an extended period, as Hamas refuses to hold elections in Gaza, and Fatah refuses to hold elections in the West Bank without its rival movement on board.

Yesterday Abbas took a rare tour around the West Bank, visiting Bethlehem and Hebron, and a pro-Fatah rally of 10,000 in the town of Halhul near Hebron.

According to Palestinian law, if a president resigns or is unable to continue in his position, the speaker of the parliament takes his place for 60 days. The current speaker is Aziz Dweik, one of the leading Hamas figures in the West Bank.

Some Fatah sources, however, have been examining the possibility that Abbas will resign, without elections being pushed back. The sources raised the name of Marwan Barghouti, a top Fatah figure held in Israeli prisons since 2002, as a possible candidate to replace Abbas in such a scenario. Should Barghouti decide to run for the presidency, pressure on Israel to release him would rise significantly.