Hamas ready to end Fatah feud and create a unity government
HAMAS said yesterday it had agreed steps towards resolving a decade-long split with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah movement, 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 Islamist movementfacing a mounting humanitarian crisis. Hamas said it had agreed to key demands made by Fatah: dissolving its socalled “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”.
Ismail Haniya, the Hamas chief, agreed to take such steps in talks with Egyptian officials in Cairo last week, a Hamas official told AFP news agency. It was unclear, however, whether the steps would result in further concrete action toward ending the deep division with Fatah.
Hamas for now continues to run a de facto separate administration in the Gaza Strip and is in charge of the secu- rity forces there. Previous attempts to resolve the split have repeatedly failed.
Mr Abbas’s Fatah welcomed the announcement, saying it followed “extensive meetings” between its own representatives and Egyptian intelligence officials. Azzam al-ahmad, a Fatah official, said a bilateral meeting with Hamas would be organised to begin working out a way forward.
“There will be tangible practical steps in the next few days, starting with the Palestinian national unity government resuming its work according to law in Gaza as it does in the West Bank, in order to continue its efforts to relieve the suffering of our people in the strip and work towards lifting the unjust blockade,” Mr Ahmad told official Palestinian news agency Wafa.
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. Mahmoud Abbas, whose term was meant to end in 2009, has remained in office with no election held.
The Gaza Strip has faced deteriorating humanitarian conditions, including an electricity crisis and a lack of clean water, and high unemployment.
Facing those conditions, Hamas has turned to Egypt for assistance, particularly for fuel to produce power – and has faced pressure to take steps toward Palestinian reconciliation in return