Hamas Says It Has Agreed to Key Conditions for Reconciliation

by Dramelin 1:00 AM 0 comments

The Gaza Strip’s militant Hamas rulers said they were ready to take key steps meant to allow the reunification of the rival Palestinian governments.
The group said in an emailed statement that it had agreed to dismantle the administrative committee that runs Gaza and hold nationwide elections.
It asked the West Bank-based government of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to return to Gaza, which Hamas has controlled since it violently wrested control of the territory more than 10 years ago.
“Hamas invites the consensus government to come to Gaza to practice its mission and carry out its duties in the Gaza Strip immediately, and it accepts holding general elections,” it said.
The two sides have made several attempts at reconciliation.
This latest effort comes at a time when Gaza’s economy is a shambles, battered by an Israeli and Egyptian blockade, three wars with Israel, and Abbas’s decision earlier this year to reduce funding for electricity in an effort to put additional pressure on Hamas.
Egypt has also become more involved in Gaza in recent months as it tries to contain militant attacks centered in the Sinai peninsula, which borders the Palestinian territory and southern Israel.
Delegations from Fatah and Hamas traveled last week to Cairo to discuss reconciliation.
Still, it’s not clear whether Hamas will brush away a formidable obstacle to reconciliation by putting its security forces under Abbas’s control.
There was no immediate comment from Abbas’s government, and a senior Palestinian official was guarded in his optimism.
“Hamas’s step is a positive indication if they really dissolved the administrative committee and showed its willingness to hand over control to the unity government,” Mahmoud al-Aloul, Abbas’s deputy in the Fatah party that governs the West Bank, said on Voice of Palestine radio.
But he said more information was needed before considering it a done deal.