GAZA CITY: Gaza’s Hamas Premier Ismail Haniyah yesterday urged Mahmoud Abbas not to begin talks with Israel, as US Secretary of State John Kerry flew from meeting the Palestinian president to see Israeli leaders.
“We ask brothers in the Palestinian Authority and Abu Mazen (Abbas) not to fall yet again into the trap of talks,” Haniyah implored, speaking to journalists after prayers in the Gaza Strip.
Abbas must “build a Palestinian strategy based on reinstating unity and ending division — building a solid and resistant Palestinian entity” before any decision to talk with Israel is taken, he said.
Hamas, which governs Gaza, and Abbas’s Fatah, which dominates the West Bank, have been at odds since Hamas’s takeover of the Palestinian coastal enclave in 2007.
AFP
