PA delegation heads to Gaza for unity talks with Hamas
Security control, Hamas appointments among sticky issues facing delegations in Egypt-backed discussions
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A delegation of Palestinian Authority ministers led by Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah was set to travel from the West Bank to Gaza on Monday for reconciliation talks with the Islamic terror group Hamas, which rules the coastal enclave.
Hamdallah will be visiting the Strip for the first time in three years as part of a renewed unity bid, after a decade of estrangement between the two groups.
Talks, backed by Egypt, are aimed to facilitate the transfer of power in the enclave from Hamas to the Palestinian Authority, but it is not yet clear how the sides will deal with issues such as security, over which Hamas currently wields total control.
Mussa Abu Marzuq, a senior Hamas figure, has said that disarming his group is not on the agenda. “This never was nor will it be up for discussion,” he said in a statement.
Azzam al-Ahmad, a leading Fatah member, said the PA must be able to fulfill its responsibilities, “including security, without any interference from any faction.”
Other issues include the future of tens of thousands of public officials hired by Hamas since 2007.
Hamas, blacklisted as a terrorist group by the European Union and the United States, won a landslide victory in 2006 Palestinian parliamentary elections.
It ousted Fatah from Gaza the following year in a violent coup after wrangling over the formation of a new government degenerated into bloody clashes.
Since then, PA President Mahmoud Abbas’s limited power has been confined to the West Bank,which is under Israeli military control and located, at its nearest point, 40 kilometers (25 miles) from the Israel-Gaza border.
The Palestinian schism is seen as a major obstacle to a peace agreement between Israel and a future Palestinian state combining the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
For the two million residents of Gaza, the hope is to see an improvement in the miserable living conditions in the overcrowded and impoverished territory.
Hamas, which seeks Israel’s elimination, has fought three wars with Israel. The Strip is under Egyptian and Israeli blockade — aimed by Israel to prevent Hamas from importing weaponry — and suffers from severe water and electricity shortages, an economic slump and unemployment of more than 40 percent.
Multiple past reconciliation attempts have ended in failure.
The Times of Israel Community.