Senior Egyptian intelligence officials recently held a meeting with top Hamas officials outside the Gaza Strip in order to discuss the ties between Egypt and Hamas, the Israeli daily Haaretz reported Wednesday.
Palestinian sources said on Tuesday that during the talks, whose place and exact time are unknown, Hamas officials asked Egypt to reopen its Rafah border crossing with the besieged Gaza Strip, ruled by Hamas. Egypt, in return, demanded several confidence-building moves.
Hamas has agreed to some of these measures, but others require further discussion, according to the sources.
Also on Tuesday, senior Hamas official Salah al-Bardawil told Palestinian media outlets that a recent Egyptian court verdict overturning Hamas’ designation as a “terrorist” group is a positive step towards reconciliation between Egypt and Hamas.
The earlier verdict, listing Hamas as a terror group, had been issued by the Cairo Court of Urgent Matters on February 28. It claimed the resistance group was involved in recent attacks against Egypt’s security forces in the restive Sinai Peninsula, an allegation strongly denied by Hamas.
Bardawil, however, stressed that Egypt’s listing of Hamas’ military wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, as a “terrorist organization” in January is an obstacle to a thaw in mutual relations, because Hamas considers its military wing as a legitimate resistance organization.
Hamas and Egypt considerably downgraded their relations after a government in Cairo led by President Mohamed Morsi was toppled in a 2013 coup.
Egypt has been keeping closed the Rafah border crossing, Gaza’s only land terminal that bypasses Israel.
Israeli has imposed a strict blockade over the impoverished Palestinian enclave of roughly 1.8 million since 2007.
Cairo has also launched a crackdown on the cross-border underground tunnels into Gaza, which are the only lifeline for Palestinians living under the Israeli siege. Palestinians use the tunnels to bring essential supplies, such as foodstuff, cooking gas, medicines, petrol, and livestock, into the impoverished land.
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source : i24news
Wednesday
10 June 2015
9:15:09 AM
694733
Senior Egyptian intelligence officials recently held a meeting with top Hamas officials outside the Gaza Strip in order to discuss the ties between Egypt and Hamas, the Israeli daily Haaretz reported Wednesday.