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Qatar hopes to seal deal between Palestinian factions
Palestinian killed by Israeli fire in southern Gaza; Egypt takes swipe at Hamas
GAZA CITY/CAIRO: Qatar’s foreign minister said on Tuesday he still believes a Palestinian unity government can be formed, after holding urgent talks here to break the political deadlock amid escalating violence.
Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem bin Jabr al-Thani arrived in Gaza City late on Monday night and went straight into a meeting with President Mahmud Abbas, of the moderate Fatah movement.
After emerging from a later meeting with Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, from the ruling Islamist movement Hamas, Sheikh Hamad said that recognition of Israel remains the main obstacle to an agreement.
“The main problem is in mutual recognition (by Israel and the Palestinians) and how to establish the two states,” he told journalists.
Sheik Hamad said he expects to “reach an agreement”, but Abbas’ spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina said much work remains. “The gap remains wide between Hamas and the international demands for forming a national unity government, and overcoming those obstacles will be difficult,” he told AFP. The Palestinians have been gripped by an unparalleled fiscal and political crisis since Hamas took office last March following its sweeping electoral victory over the once dominant Fatah. After Hamas refused to recognise Israel, renounce violence or abide by past peace agreements, the West suspended direct aid, sending the economy into freefall and depriving civil servants of their full salaries for six months.
A stalemate in talks on forming a unity government acceptable to the West has persisted as spiraling inter-faction tensions spilled over into deadly clashes that have left at least 12 people dead over the past week.
Qatar boasts strong ties with the Islamic militant movement, which has continued to reject huge pressure from the West and from Abbas to take part in a unity government committed to recognising Israel and past peace deals.
According to one official, Sheikh Hamad met in Damascus with the exiled political supremo of Hamas, Khaled Meshaal before arriving in Gaza.
He already met Meshaal last week and presented a series of proposals aimed at reaching a breakthrough in the stalled talks. The official said Sheikh Hamad was looking to bring Hamas round to a six-point compromise formula, focusing on the Palestinian government’s respect for international resolutions and past Israeli-Palestinian agreements, accepting a Palestinian state in the 1967 borders and an end to violence.
Such proposals reflect the views of the Palestinian president who wants a government equipped with a moderate outlook capable of ending the damaging international boycott and replacing the Hamas-led cabinet.
Although Hamas agreed on a national unity deal in September based on a reconciliation document approved in June, its leaders insist that agreement does not amount to recognition, even implicit, of Israel.
Meanwhile, a 21-year-old Palestinian was killed on Tuesday by Israeli fire in the southern Gaza Strip, hospital officials said.
Amin Sufi was killed early morning when Israeli soldiers fired at him in the east of the city of Rafah, they said.
The death brings to 5,412 the number of people killed since the Palestinian uprising broke out in September 2000, the vast majority of them Palestinians, according to an AFP count.
In a related development, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit took a fresh swipe at the Hamas-led Palestinian government and leader Ismail Haniyeh in an interview published on Tuesday by the top-selling daily Al-Ahram.
“There is an Arab initiative of land for peace, which the Palestinian prime minister rejects. So let him find a solution on his own. I say this with no equivocation,” Abul Gheit said. The initiative the foreign minister referred to was adopted by the 2002 Arab summit in Beirut and offers peace to Israel in exchange for its withdrawal from Arab territories it occupied in 1967.
“When the Palestinian prime minister says Arabs should play their part, we tell him that Arabs and Palestinians should do this together. ‘The Arabs cannot play alone a part that you reject’,” Abul Gheit said.
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