Hamas to media: Abbas, don’t talk to media
Spokesman of the terror group decries ‘dialogue’ through reporters at press conference
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As the indirect sparring between Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas reached new heights over the weekend, leaders of the Gaza-based terror organization say they are fed up with the PA leader’s criticism leveled at the group being conveyed through the media… or so they tell the media.
In an article in the Palestinian Ma’an News Agency headlined “Hamas to Abbas: Stop conducting dialogue through media,” the Hamas spokesman proceeds to castigate the PA leader for his remarks to the press during a press conference of his own.
Spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said “President Abbas’s remarks against Hamas and the resistance are unjustified and the sources of information and figures he relied on were incorrect and have nothing to do with the truth.”
Abbas has threatened to break off a unity agreement with Hamas if the Islamist movement does not allow the government to operate properly in the Gaza Strip.
And Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah told AFP a dispute with Hamas over the payment of salaries to thousands of its employees had become the main issue from preventing his government of national unity from operating inside Gaza.
Abbas’s accusation that Hamas was effectively running a parallel administration in Gaza drew an angry reaction from the Islamist movement, which denounced his allegations as “baseless.”
AFP contributed to this report.
The Times of Israel Community.