GAZA: Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas hopes a meeting with President Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah in Mecca will end factional fighting and a crippling Western embargo

Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas hopes a meeting with President Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah in Mecca will end factional fighting and a crippling Western embargo. Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas hoped on Monday (February 5) a meeting with President Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah on Tuesday (February 6) would result in an agreement over a unity government to end a crippling Western embargo. At the urging of Saudi Arabia, Haniyeh and Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal would hold talks in Mecca with an Abbas-led Fatah delegation to try to overcome remaining differences before the formation of a unity government. "It is true that there are many issues that have been placed on the negotiating table in Mecca, and that events might cast their shadows on the first stages of these meetings, and that there might be difficulties," Haniyeh said at the weekly cabinet meeting in Gaza. "But, despite this, we confirm that we are going to Mecca, the holy city, with true intentions to reach a Palestinian-Palestinian agreement that would end the state of tension and crisis, and reinforce national unity on the basis of forming a national unity government." Haniyeh said that a ceasefire deal between rival forces of Hamas and Fatah was taking hold and hoped it would last. In Gaza City gunmen from rival factions stood down, with minor violations reported, ahead of a long-awaited resumption of talks in Mecca. Members of the governing Hamas faction and rival Fatah conducted joint patrols of the Gaza Strip to ensure that their gunmen had left the bullet-pocked streets and removed checkpoints as required by the ceasefire's midnight deadline. Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum accused Fatah of violating the ceasefire by abducting four Hamas members and refusing to pull gunmen off several rooftops in Gaza City. While both sides had released some hostages taken during the fighting, officials said that Hamas still held nine Fatah men while 32 members of Hamas remained in Fatah custody. Previous truces fell apart quickly amid tensions that have spiralled since Hamas, an Islamist group whose charter calls for Israel's destruction, trounced Fatah in elections last year, prompting the West to suspend aid unless it moderates its stand. President Mahmoud Abbas's call in December for new elections triggered an especially fierce round of fighting. Hamas accused Abbas, the Fatah leader, of engineering a coup. At least 80 people have been killed in clashes since. Abbas said he would give talks one last chance to form a coalition government between Hamas and Fatah. A previous rounds of negotiations had been abandoned after Hamas stuck to its refusal to accept Western powers' demands that the government recognise the Jewish state, renounce violence and accept past Israeli-Palestinian accords. Failure to clinch an agreement in Mecca appeared certain to fuel tensions and more fighting. In a potentially ominous sign, Hamas's Izz el-Deen al-Qassam brigades armed wing said it continued to hold a nephew of Mohammad Dahlan, Fatah's most powerful leader in Gaza and a top security aide to Abbas. Qassam Brigades has also called on the Fatah forces that stormed and burned part of Gaza's Islamic University on Friday to turn themselves in to the brigade's leaders by Wednesday night or face "punishment". Hamas is still holding nine Fatah members and Fatah has twenty eight Hamas loyalists.

ITN Source | February 5, 2007

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