PA President Abbas with Hamas PM Haniyeh 311 (R).
(photo credit: REUTERS/Suhaib Salem)
Fatah and Hamas have agreed that that Palestinian factions in the Gaza Strip will maintain a truce with Israel following the scheduled signing of the Palestinian unity deal, Egyptian newspaper Al-Ahram quoted Palestinian sources as saying on Tuesday.
Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas are expected to sign the Egyptian-sponsored reconciliation agreement in Cairo on Wednesday.
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Representatives of several Palestinian factions have also been invited to attend the signing ceremony in Cairo.
On Sunday, Mashaal's deputy Musa Abu Marzouk
was quoted as saying that Hamas would not recognize Israel’s right to exist, despite the agreement to form a Palestinian unity government.
“Hamas
has a principled position regarding this issue,” Marzouk said. “We
won’t recognize the Zionist entity. Our rights are still usurped and
it’s illogical for us to recognize the Zionist entity because that would
be at the expense of our stolen lands and our people in the refugee
camps.”
Marzouk said that Hamas did not see any connection
between recognizing Israel’s right to exist and the establishment of a
Palestinian state.
“Most of the Arab countries don’t recognize
Israel, and yet they continue to deal with the international community,”
he said. “And many European countries did not recognize Israel until
recently. Therefore the international community should not look into
this issue.”