'Palestine TV' conducts rare interview with Hamas leader

The Palestinian Authority’s official television station, Palestine TV, broadcast an interview on Monday night with Ismail Haniyeh, head of the Hamas political bureau, who is currently visiting Lebanon.The interview, the first of its kind with a Hamas leader, is seen by Palestinians in the context of PA President Mahmoud Abbas’s ongoing efforts to reach a national-unity agreement that would end the split between the West Bank and Gaza Strip.Hamas and Abbas’s Fatah faction have been engaged in a bitter power struggle since July 2007, when Hamas violently seized control of the Gaza Strip.It is rare for Palestine TV to broadcast interviews with Hamas officials. Similarly, Hamas-controlled media outlets have regularly boycotted representatives of Fatah and the PA.The interview with Haniyeh came days after leaders of several Palestinian factions, including Fatah and Hamas, held a meeting via videoconferencing from Ramallah and Beirut to discuss the latest developments surrounding the Palestinian issue in the wake of the Israel-United Arab Emirates deal.Abbas, who addressed the meeting from his office in Ramallah, called on the Arab countries not to normalize relations with Israel before the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with east Jerusalem as its capital.Haniyeh and Islamic Jihad secretary-general Ziyad al-Nakhalah also delivered speeches during the virtual meeting of the faction leaders.The interview with Haniyeh was conducted at the Palestinian Embassy in Beirut. He sat in front of a large picture of former PLO leader Yasser Arafat.Haniyeh left the Gaza Strip earlier this year and has since been living in Qatar.During the interview, Haniyeh said the faction leaders were in agreement about rejecting US President Donald Trump’s vision for peace in the Middle East, dubbed “Peace to Prosperity.” The faction leaders also agreed on the need to achieve national unity, he added.Hamas “won’t recognize Israel’s right to exist or give up one inch of the land of Palestine, and it will continue to adhere to the armed struggle as a strategic option,” Haniyeh said.Haniyeh told Palestine TV he hopes that the next interview with him will be held “in Jerusalem, the capital of the state of Palestine.”