GAZA CITY: Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyah reached out to West Bank rivals Fatah yesterday, saying its members would be allowed back into Gaza, in efforts to promote Palestinian reconciliation.
“The (Hamas) government will allow all Fatah members who are from Gaza and who left the Strip (in 2007) to return, without any preconditions,” apart from those accused of killing Hamas members during intense factional fighting that year, Haniyah said.
Speaking to reporters after a visit to the Hamas interior ministry in Gaza City, he added the authorities would “release a small number of Fatah members who are imprisoned (in Gaza) for security reasons.”
Fatah MPs, who are based in the West Bank, would also be allowed to visit Gaza, Haniyah added.
Hamas in recent months has reached out to Fatah, which dominates the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority, as Israel and Egypt have tightened a blockade on the Islamist movement’s Gaza enclave.
Haniyah spoke via telephone to Fatah leader and Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas in October, stressing the need for reconciliation and “a return to national unity.”
Longtime tensions between Hamas and Fatah boiled over in a week of fighting in 2007 that left the Islamist movement — which is sworn to Israel’s destruction — in charge of the impoverished coastal strip.
The fighting came a year and half after Hamas won a landslide victory in Palestinian general elections, leading to a Western boycott of the Islamist-run government.
Since the takeover both movements have launched tit-for-tat crackdowns on their rivals in the areas under their control.
AFP
