Rival Palestinian political leaders met in Egypt and decided to form an intra-Palestinian reconciliation committee.
President Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh held a rare face-to-face meeting in the coastal city of Alamein on Sunday, joining representatives from most of the Palestinian political faction.
The latest reconciliation attempt is aimed at bridging differences between Hamas’ parallel government in the blockaded Gaza Strip and the Palestinian Authority controlled by Abbas Fatah’s movement, which runs Palestinian-controlled territories in the occupied West Bank. area.
Abbas issued a statement after the meeting, saying: “I think today’s meeting of the general secretaries of various Palestinian factions is the first and important step to continue the dialogue. We hope that the dialogue can achieve the expected goals as soon as possible.”
The 87-year-old president announced “the establishment of a committee to continue dialogue, end division and achieve national unity in Palestine”.
“We must restore the single state, the single system, the single law and the single legitimate army,” Abbas added.
Earlier on Sunday, Haniyeh called on Abbas to end “security cooperation” and “political arrests” with Israel, according to participants.
The Hamas leader also said that “a new, inclusive parliament must be formed on the basis of free and democratic elections”.
Hamas won Palestine’s last legislative election in 2006 but became Gaza’s de facto ruler a year later after seizing control from Fatah, which had attempted a pre-emptive coup to replace the Hamas-led government. Weeks of violent fighting that followed led to Hamas gaining control of the coastal enclave while Fatah, the dominant Palestinian Authority party, exercised limited autonomy in the occupied West Bank.
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Calls for PLO reform
Abbas later issued a statement saying he “hoped to convene a conference in Egypt soon to announce to our people “the end of 17 years of division” and the return of Palestinian national unity”.
Palestinian political scientist Moukhaimer Abu Saada told AFP that the establishment of the committee was not cause for celebration.
“The best way to kill something is to form a committee,” he said in Gaza.
He also said he doubted the move would make any progress “in ending division or setting a date for Palestinian elections”.
On Sunday, Haniyeh called for a “reorganization of the Palestine Liberation Organization,” the umbrella body that promotes Palestinian statehood. The PLO includes most of the Palestinian political faction, but not Hamas or Islamic Jihad.
Abbas said the PLO was “the only legitimate representative of the Palestinian people”.
Abbas said: “No Palestinian is allowed to have reservations about this organization, its state and its political programme. Instead, it is necessary for us to unite and protect it, as it is considered one of the most important achievements of our people.”
He also called for “peaceful popular resistance”, while Haniyeh preached “total resistance”.
The last official meeting between the two leaders was in Algiers in July 2022, five years later.
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increased violence
Abbas and Haniyeh were joined by other faction leaders, in addition to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (Jihad) and two other groups.
Jihad made it a condition for the delegation to Alamein to release prisoners held by Palestinian Authority security forces.
The group’s leader, Khalid Batesh, said Jihad “wanted Mahmoud Abbas to respond to his grievances and calls for the release of his members detained in the occupied West Bank”.
“We are astonished by the unprecedented security intrusions targeting resistance fighters,” he said.
Sunday’s meeting came amid a resurgence of violence in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, particularly in the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since the 1967 Middle East war.
In 2023 alone, more than 200 Palestinians will be killed by the Israeli army.
Officials have warned that 2023 is on track to be the deadliest year for Palestinians in the West Bank since the United Nations began counting deaths in 2005.
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2023-07-31 14:33:53
