Hamas agrees to steps towards Palestinian unity
A masked youth cadet of the Ezzedine al Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of the Hamas movement, stands during a march in the southern Gaza Strip city of Khan Yunis on Friday
Gaza City, Palestinian Territories - Hamas said on Sunday it had agreed to take steps toward resolving a decade-long split with Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas’ Fatah, announcing it would dissolve a body seen as a rival government and was ready to hold elections.
The statement comes after Hamas leaders held talks with Egyptian officials last week, and with the Gaza Strip run by the Palestinian movement facing a humanitarian crisis.
Hamas said it had agreed to key demands made by Fatah: Dissolving the so-called ‘administrative committee’ created in March, while saying it was ready for elections and negotiations toward a unity government.
It called on the Palestinian Authority government based in the Israeli-occupied West Bank ‘to come to Gaza to exercise its functions and carry out its duties immediately’.
Hamas chief Ismail Haniya agreed to take such steps in talks
with Egyptian officials in Cairo last week, a Hamas official said. Fatah official Azzam al Ahmad said a bilateral meeting with Hamas would be organised to begin working out a way forward.
No polls since 2006
UN Middle East envoy Nickolay Mladenov welcomed the statement. “I welcome the recent statement by Hamas announcing the dissolving of the administrative committee in Gaza and agreement to allow the government of national consensus to assume its responsibilities in Gaza.”
Hamas has run Gaza since 2007, having seized it in a near civil war from Fatah following a dispute over parliamentary elections won by the Islamist movement the previous year.
The West Bank and Gaza have not participated in an election together since 2006. Abbas, whose term was meant to end in 2009, has remained in office with no election held.