Nov 5 (Reuters) - Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas announced on Thursday he would not run for re-election in January, throwing further doubt on the prospects for peacemaking with Israel. Here are some key facts about Abbas: BECOMING PRESIDENT: * Also known by his nickname Abu Mazen, Abbas, 74, is a veteran of the Palestinian struggle for statehood. He was deputy to Yasser Arafat in the Palestine Liberation Organisation and took it over after Arafat's death in November 2004. * Abbas co-authored interim peace accords with Israel in 1993 in which Palestinians obtained a measure of self-rule in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. * Despite his lack of charisma, he was elected president of the Palestinian Authority in January 2005 in a landslide victory. * His Fatah movement was defeated by Islamist Hamas in a surprise general election upset in January 2006. * Abbas, whose original four-year term expired in January 2009, faced a legitimacy challenge that Israel's Gaza war postponed. Abbas had contended that legal changes meant his term would not end until 2010. RECENT EVENTS: * Hamas, boycotted by much of the world for its refusal to accept past peace deals, renounce violence and recognise Israel, seized control of Gaza in June 2007 after routing Fatah forces loyal to Abbas. Egypt has been mediating for over a year to heal the split between the Abbas's Fatah group and Hamas. * U.S. President Barack Obama met newly elected Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Abbas in September for talks that yielded no signs of a breakthrough on reviving negotiations to end the six-decade conflict. NEW LEASE OF LIFE: * Fatah strengthened Abbas and reclaimed some legitimacy with voters in August by unseating many of Yasser Arafat's "old guard" in the first Fatah congress in 20 years. * Abbas, who is endorsed by Western powers, urged Fatah at the time to mark a "new beginning", work to redeem its record of venality and poor governance and recapture electoral support. EARLY LIFE: * Abbas was born in March 1935 in the town of Safed in what is now the Galilee region of northern Israel. His family were among hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who fled or were driven from their homes in the war of Israel's creation in 1948.
Israeli soldiers stand near munitions displayed at the port of Ashdod November 4, 2009, that according to the military was found on the Antigua-flagged Francop vessel, intercepted overnight in the Mediterranean ...
