Palestinian Islamic Resistance movement, Hamas, said that the Friday
meeting between the Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, and the
Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, did not achieve any positive
results.
Hamas media spokesperson, Fawzi Barhoum, stated that the movement does not believe that this meeting will be able to achieve any serious and positive results. The statements of Barhoum came before the Abbas-Olmert meeting was concluded.
Barhoum added that over the last ten years, dozens of Palestinian officials held meetings with Israeli ministers but never achieved any positive outcome.
"Arafat negotiated with them for so long", Barhoum stated, "but they eventually surrounded him in his headquarters and poisoned him".
Meanwhile, the Hamas government spokesperson, Dr. Ghazi Hamad, slammed the Israeli "stubbornness regarding a prisoner swap, and the transfer of all tax money it withheld after Hamas was elected to office in March”.
Hamad added that Israel does not want the Palestinian people to live in freedom and independence.
During their meeting, Abbas and Olmert agreed that Israel would transfer $100 million of Tax revenue Israel withheld since Hamas took office. Olmert refused to release all of the money and said that the transfer of the 100 million will be through mechanisms that ensures the money does not reach the Hamas-led government, but directly to Abbas.
Israeli online daily Haaretz reported that Israel also agreed to remove some of the checkpoints in the West Bank, and to ease the restrictions on the Karni commercial crossing in the Gaza Strip in order to facilitate the entry of good into the Gaza Strip.
Haaretz added that Olmert promised to meet a quota of 400 trucks moving through the main cargo crossing between Gaza and Israel.
