Abbas Appoints two Fatah Officials to Attend Talks with Hamas

Head of the Palestinian Self-Rule Authority Mahmoud Abbas has appointed two senior Fatah officials to start informal talks with Hamas movement, an informed source said on Sunday. The Palestinian source told FNA that Fatah officials deny such meetings although the two Fatah members, namely Jebraeil Rajoub (a senior official in Fatah movement) and Hamzeh Rahim (deputy secretary general of the People’s Front), have already attended several rounds of informal talks with Hamas officials.

Following one week of bloody clashes between Fatah and Hamas movements which claimed more than 110 lives in Palestine and after Hamas movement took control of the Gaza Strip from Fatah security bodies in mid May, the head of the Self-Rule Authority Mahmoud Abbas dissolved the national unity government and replaced Ismayil Haniyah with Salam Fayaz without having the vote of confidence from the Palestinian parliament. Haniyah and Hamas have defied the order, describing it as an illegal move violating the Palestinian constitution.

After Mahmoud Abbas assigned Fayaz to the post of Prime Minister, many Fatah officials and members split from Fatah and formed smaller groups and movements or defected to Hamas.

After Hamas won parliamentary elections in January 25, 2006 and formed the Palestinian government, western countries, specially the US and EU, as well as Israel laid an economic siege on the Palestinian nation to make Hamas government recognize the Zionist regime of Israel, but the Palestinian government showed strong resistance and did not bow to West’s unfair demands. Since the start of embargoes, Palestinian people have suffered severe lack of food and medicine and lived in pain and agony.

The United States and Israel have long striven to sow seeds of discord among Palestinians by rendering support to Fatah and pressurizing Hamas.