Hamas' MP and head of the parliament in Gaza City Ahmad Bahar (R) chairs a Palestinian legislative Council meeting in Gaza City as exiled former senior Fatah member Mohammed Dahlan attends it through video conference from the United Arab Emirates on July 27, 2017.
( AFP PHOTO / SAID KHATIB)
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s exiled rival took part in a public meeting with Hamas members of parliament Thursday for the first time in a decade.
Mohammed Dahlan was Abbas’s ally inside the Fatah party until they fell out, with Dahlan expelled from the PA in 2011.
He now lives in exile in the United Arab Emirates and has been moving closer to Hamas, the terror group that rules the Gaza Strip, in recent months, with rumors he could join a government in the Palestinian enclave.
Abbas, the internationally recognized Palestinian leader based in the West Bank, has sought to isolate both Dahlan and Hamas.
Hamas’ MP and head of the parliament in Gaza City Ahmad Bahar (R) chairs a Palestinian legislative Council meeting in Gaza City as exiled former senior Fatah member Mohammed Dahlan attends it through video conference from the United Arab Emirates on July 27, 2017. (AFP PHOTO / SAID KHATIB)
A portion of the Palestinian Legislative Council, which has not met in full since Hamas seized Gaza from Fatah in a near civil war in 2007, held an emergency session Thursday.
Get The Times of Israel's Daily Editionby email and never miss our top stories
Dahlan attended via video link, while seven of his allies in Gaza attended in person along with 22 Hamas members, according to Hamas’s media office.
The 132-member parliament is dominated by Hamas with 74 members to Fatah’s 45.
He said he had been talking with Hamas to reach “understandings which are able to restore hope to the people of Gaza and alleviate their suffering.”
Advertisement
He added that talks with the Islamists were going well “but we are still at the beginning of the road.”
Exiled former senior Fatah member Mohammed Dahlan attends a Palestinian legislative Council meeting in Gaza City through video conference from the United Arab Emirates on July 27, 2017 following developments at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound. (AFP PHOTO / SAID KHATIB)
The meeting comes after a delegation headed by Hamas’s Gaza leader Yahya Sinwar met with Dahlan in Cairo in June to discuss ways to resolve the crises in Gaza, according to Palestinian officials.
Reconciliation between Hamas and Dahlan would be seen as a blow for Abbas.
Help us report truthfully on social media
As a multimedia journalist, my job is to take the quality, fact-based journalism produced by The Times of Israel newsroom and make it accessible across every platform — from Instagram posts to podcasts to short-form videos.
This is how many, especially young people, consume news these days. But misinformation is rampant on social media. Our team at ToI produces accurate, responsible short-form reporting on Israel and the Jewish world.
If you believe in the importance of factual social media journalism, please consider joining our reader support group, The Times of Israel Community. Your financial support is essential to sustain responsible multimedia reporting.
We’re really pleased that you’ve read X Times of Israel articles in the past month.
That’s why we started the Times of Israel - to provide discerning readers like you with must-read coverage of Israel and the Jewish world.
So now we have a request. Unlike other news outlets, we haven’t put up a paywall. But as the journalism we do is costly, we invite readers for whom The Times of Israel has become important to help support our work by joining The Times of Israel Community.
For as little as $6 a month you can help support our quality journalism while enjoying The Times of Israel AD-FREE, as well as accessing exclusive content available only to Times of Israel Community members.
Thank you, David Horovitz, Founding Editor of The Times of Israel
Add ToI as a Preferred Source on Google
