Hamas and Fatah officials are in the process of organizing a meeting
between Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas Prime
Minister Ismail Haniyeh in the coming days to settle ongoing issues
preventing reconciliation, senior Hamas official Ismail Al Ashkar said
told Hamas affiliate Al Resalah Wednesday.
Ashkar stressed that the meetings would work to sort out frosty relations between
the two factions that were worsened last week when Hamas refused entry
to a Fatah delegation at the Erez Border Crossing near Beit Hanoun in
the Gaza Strip.
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Ashkar added that he and other senior Hamas officials have made
efforts to discuss the unstable relations between the two groups, and
that Hamas leader Halil Al Haya had contacted the Fatah delegation head
Azzam Al Ahmad in order to solve the "crisis" that occurred as a result
of their barred entry.
The delegation debacle underlined the
unsteady course of reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah, even since
the two groups signed agreements with other Palestinian factions for
forming a unified PLO including the Islamist group, whose power Fatah
did not recognize since Hamas won Palestinian elections 2006.
Palestinian
Authority President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah movement said on Sunday it
would have to re-evaluate its reconciliation pact with the Islamist
Hamas group following the rejection of the Fatah visit, where three
officials were stopped from entering the coastal enclave.
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