Former spokesperson of the Hamas-dominated government in Gaza, Ghazi Hammad, said on Wednsday that the rival Fatah party need to take a unified stance towards potential reconciliation with the Hamas party.
Speaking to the Al-Quds radio station Hammad said “I would like to say that in general, the Fatah leadership is inclined to a constructive dialogue after the Sana’a declaration, however, there has been tremendous American-Israeli pressure and warning of cutting off contacts and funds to the Palestinian Authority if such a dialogue is started”.
He confirmed that there are efforts underway to maintain some level of contact in order to ensure a sort of harmony among the parties concerned. The Hamas official also asserted on the fact, emphasized before by Hamas’s exiled leader Khaled Mash’aal, that the Hamas party has already made mistakes and that these faults have not been deliberate.
Hammad’s statement comes in the backdrop of a Yemeni-brokered reconciliation agreement, signed last week by Hamas and Fatah, in the Yemeni capital of San’aa. Hamas seized control of Gaza in June 2007 amidst a power struggle with the Fatah party of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
Fatah-Hamas violent rivalry broke out following Abbas’s call in December2006 for early elections. Since taking power after the January 2006 elections, the Hamas party has been sidelined by western governments, the United States and Israel, due to Hamas' opposition to peace talks with Israel until Israel halts actions against the Palestinian people.
