Hamas leader meets UN envoy over humanitarian crisis, Jewish state law

Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh and UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Nikolay Mladenov met in the Gaza Strip and discuss ways to ameliorate the humanitarian crisis in the coastal enclave, Hamas’s official website reports.

The coastal enclave suffers from severely inadequate water, electricity and health infrastructure, widespread poverty and a high unemployment rate.

Haniyeh and Mladenov also discuss about the Knesset’s passage last week of a quasi-constitutional Israeli law that enshrines Israel as the national home of the Jewish people, the report on the Hamas webpage says.

It’s unclear when exactly the meeting took place.

Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum blasted the law on Thursday, asserting that it “legalizes Israeli racism.”

— Adam Rasgon