Hamas said on Monday that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas won’t be
able to visit the Gaza Strip unless he coordinates the visit in advance with the
Islamist movement.
Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said the Hamas
government has not yet received any notification about Abbas’s intention to
visit the Gaza Strip.
RELATED:
UNRWA wants full blockade lift'Waiting for Hamas on Schalit deal'He said that such a visit can’t be organized
through the media.
Earlier this week, the PA’s official newspaper,
Al-Ayyam, quoted Abbas as
saying that he was “seriously” considering visiting
the Gaza Strip.
“I often think of going there,” Abbas said. “But
then I
say perhaps it’s better to wait until we achieve reconciliation [with
Hamas].
Yet it does occur to me sometimes to go there and I’m sure such a visit
could
help.”
Marzouk accuses Abbas of trying to help
Israel
Musa
Abu Marzouk, deputy chairman of the Hamas Political Bureau,
accused Abbas of exploiting the issue of reconciliation between Hamas
and Fatah
to help Israel in the aftermath of last month’s flotilla aid ship
incident.
“There are some who have started talking about
reconciliation
now to help Israel avoid international pressure to lift the blockade on
the Gaza
Strip,” Abu Marzouk said. “Some raised this issue out of good
intentions, while
others did so out of bad intentions.”
The Hamas official
expressed his
movement’s desire to launch talks with Fatah and other Palestinian
factions to
reach agreement over an Egyptian initiative to solve the crisis in the
Palestinian arena.
He confirmed that Hamas has many reservations
about
the initiative, but said that all parties should place the Palestinians’
interests above other concerns.
Egypt has rejected Hamas’s demand
to
amend the reconciliation initiative. Last weekend, Egyptian Foreign
Minister
Ahmed Aboul Gheit said that Cairo won’t make any changes in the plan and
urged
Hamas to accept it as Fatah has already done.
Hamas is worried
that the
initiative would lead to the return of PA security forces to the Gaza
Strip and
the dismantlement of its armed wing, Izaddin al-Kassam. Hamas is also
opposed to
placing the Rafah border crossing under the exclusive control of PA
security
forces, as was the case before the movement seized full control of the
Gaza
Strip about three years ago.
Abu Marzouk expressed regret over
Egypt’s
refusal to amend the initiative.
“We want the Egyptian sponsors
to take
into consideration the results of the [2006] election [that brought
Hamas to
power] and the Palestinians’ desire to pursue the resistance and extract
their
rights,” he said. “There is only one program that’s on the table now and
that’s
the resistance program.”
Hamas says PA arrested its
supporters in West BankIn a related development,
Hamas accused the PA
security forces of arresting 11 of its supporters in the West Bank in
the past
24 hours.
Among those who were taken into custody was Khaled
al-Haj, a
prominent Hamas figure in Jenin who was released two months ago from
Israeli
prison.
Hamas said that among those arrested were two students
and a
lecturer from An-Najah University in Nablus. The students were
identified as
Mohammed Ghassan and Yehya Awaiseh, while the lecturer was named as Raed
Hijjawi.
Salah Bardaweel, a Hamas legislator and spokesman in the
Gaza
Strip, said that the arrest of the top Hamas man in Jenin was one of
many
“crimes perpetrated by Fatah under the protection of occupation and [US
Lt.-Gen. Keith] Dayton.”
He added that the ongoing crackdown on
Hamas in the West Bank proved that Fatah was not really interested in
achieving
reconciliation.
Hamas, on the other hand, arrested Palestinian
reporter
Nasr Abu Ful and confiscated his personal computer. No reason was given
for the
arrest of the journalist.