Islamic Jihad leader: Fatah, Hamas not ready to end split

Source : Maan News Agency

BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) -- Talks between Fatah and Hamas on Tuesday and Wednesday accomplished little as the parties failed to reach any agreement, a top Islamic Jihad official said Thursday.

Abu Imad al-Rifaei, the Islamist group's representative in a committee preparing for national elections, told Ma'an that the talks focused on the makeup of the Palestinian Legislative Council and the Palestinian National Council.

But he said neither Fatah nor Hamas seemed serious about ending the division and implementing a reconciliation deal signed in 2011.

Al-Rifaei, who also serves as Islamic Jihad's representative in Lebanon, blasted the talks as a "waste of time."

He expressed strong doubts that elections were on the horizon but he said if they took place, Islamic Jihad would field candidates for the national council and PLO executive committee. The faction does not participate in legislative or presidential elections, he noted.

Asked about the situation in Syria, al-Rifaei denounced Israel's bombing in early May of a regime facility in Damascus. He says Islamic Jihad stands by any country facing Israeli attacks and will respond as it sees fit

1 dead, 2 injured in clashes at Lebanon's largest Palestinian refugee camp

Source : Xinhua

BEIRUT, May 19 (Xinhua) -- Fierce clashes erupted in the largest Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon around midnight on Saturday, leaving one killed and two others injured.

The clashes between the Bilal Badr Islamist Salafist group and Fatah movement took place at the Ain al-Hilweh Palestinian refugee camp in southern Lebanon.

The victim was identified as Moawiya Mathloum, while the injured included a woman called Mirna Shahatha and another man, state-run National News Agency reported.

The conflict continued until the early hours of Sunday morning.

The Ain al-Hilweh refugee camp has been the scene of recurring violence as Islamist and secular Palestinian factions vie for power within the area. According to long-standing convention, the Lebanese army does not enter the 12 refugee camps on its soil but leaves security to the Palestinians themselves.

So far, 400,000 Palestinian refugees are living in the 12 camps.

Hamas threatens to issue own passports for Gaza people

Source :   Xinhua

RAMALLAH, March 12 (Xinhua) -- Hamas accused Tuesday the rival Fatah movement of "depriving thousands of Gaza people of passports, " threatening to issue its own version of Palestinian travel documents.

Ibrahim Salah, spokesperson of the Hamas interior ministry, accused the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) in the West Bank, where President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah party holds sway, of " depriving thousands of Gaza people of passports."

He cited that some patients died while waiting for passports to go for treatment in Egypt "because of the procrastination by the Ramallah government."

According to Salah, Hamas demanded the PNA, via human rights groups and the Palestine Liberation Organization factions, sending blank passports to the coastal enclave to be filled, printed and issued, which was refused by the PNA.

However, Nour Oudeh, spokesperson for the Palestinian government in Ramallah, questioned Hamas' technical and diplomatic capacity to issue such a passport, noting that the PNA-issued passports are the only documents recognized internationally.

She added that Hamas' plan to issue passports "harms the Palestinian sovereignty and boosts the internal Palestinian division."

Hamas, which took over Gaza after routing pro-Abbas forces in 2007, says it needs 5,000 to 7,000 passports monthly.

Palestinian PM to resign after Obama's visit: source

Source :   Xinhua

RAMALLAH, March 5 (Xinhua) -- Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad plans to resign after U.S. President Barack Obama's visit to the region this month, a source said Tuesday.

Fayyad is facing pressure from President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah party over the financial crisis engulfing the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), said the source, a member of Fatah central committee.

Fayyad, a U.S.-educated economist, prefers to submit his resignation after Obama visits Israel and the West Bank on March 20 and 21, so Fayyad will not be appearing as taking a position against Obama, the source added.

Earlier this week, Palestinian Finance Minister Nabil Qasis resigned. Fayyad accepted the resignation of Qasis, but Abbas reportedly rejected it.

The PNA suffers a financial crisis with a shortfall exceeding one billion U.S. dollar as donors reduced their grants and Israel stopped transferring Palestinian tax revenues regularly.

Israeli soldiers raid West Bank villages, arrest five

Source :   Al Akhbar English

Israeli forces arrested five Palestinian youths, including a 14-year-old, during overnight raids in the West Bank Sunday, local media reported.

The latests arrests come as Palestinian factions wrapped up two days of reconciliation talks in Cairo.

In the West Bank village of Burqaa, near Nablus, soldiers arrested Shadi Abu Omar, Fadi Abu Omar, and Munjed Daughlas at dawn, according to Ma’an news agency.

Israeli forces arrested another man, 24-year-old Moussa Issa Abu Sabha, during a raid on Yatta, south of Hebron.

An Israeli military spokesperson said two others were arrested in Arura, near Ramalla, and another in Beit Kahil, in the Hebron area.

Israeli forces raided the town of Burqeen, west of Jenin, and arrested 14-year-old Mohammed Ghanem. Other residents suffered from asphyxiation after soldiers fired tear gas at them.

WAFA news agency reported that soldiers also summoned two Palestinians, Sami Yousef Shariah, 23, and Mohammed Ali Al-Orouj, 22, for questioning near the illegal Jewish settlement of Ghosh Itsion, south of Bethlehem.

In Cairo, Palestinian rival factions Hamas and Fatah made little progress following two days of talks in Cairo. They remain divided over how exactly to apply a deal the two parties had agreed to more than a year earlier, an official said.

PLO Executive Committee member Wassel Abu Youssef had earlier on Saturday said that the main points of dispute were over the way elections were held for the PNC, as well as other issues relating to legislative and presidential elections in the Palestinian territories.

He also said there was disagreement over the timing of the establishment of a caretaker cabinet, which is supposed to prepare for new elections, and the announcement of a date for such a poll.

Another point of dispute was the type of voting system to be used, officials said.

The Cairo talks were convened by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, whose Fatah faction signed a reconciliation deal with Hamas in April 2011 aimed at ending years of rivalry, but which has never been properly implemented.

(Al-Akhbar, Ma’an, AFP)

Egypt says Fatah, Hamas agree to enact unity deal

Source : Maan News Agency

CAIRO/GAZA (Reuters) -- An Egyptian official said the leaders of Hamas and Fatah factions had agreed at talks in Cairo on Wednesday to implement a long-delayed reconciliation pact, although it was unclear if the deal would extend beyond holding more talks.

President Mahmoud Abbas of the Fatah movement based in the West Bank and Khaled Mashaal of the Hamas group that controls the Gaza Strip met face-to-face for the first time in over a year to discuss how to implement their 2011 deal.

The rivals fell out badly when Hamas seized control of Gaza from Fatah by force in 2007. But the have drawn closer since Israel's assault on Gaza in November, in which Hamas claimed victory, an a diplomatic win by Abbas the same month in which the United Nations voted to recogniz Palestine as a "non-member state".

"It was agreed that sides would begin immediately to implement the previously agreed mechanism of the agreement signed," a senior Egyptian official involved in the talks, who declined to b named, told Reuters by phone from Cairo.

Nabil Abu Rdaineh, a senior aide to Abbas, said the president had held a lengthy meeting wit Meshaal in a "positive atmosphere". He said there was an agreement to hold more meetings, bu declined to give details. No comment was immediately available from Hamas.

The two sides have signally failed to put into practice the deal they signed in Cairo in May 2011 t reunify the leadership of the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories.

The Egyptian official said discussions to find ways to do so had been held in a "positive spirit", an that the rival factions would meet again in the first week of February to work out a timetable.

Egyptian mediators had hoped to coax Abbas and Mashaal into a meeting with Egyptian Presiden Muhammad Mursi, but in the event they met without Mursi. Abbas is reluctant to accept an format that would imply giving the Hamas leader a status equivalent to his own.

Abbas appoints Fatah leadership in Gaza

Source : Maan News Agency

GAZA CITY (Ma'an) -- President Mahmoud Abbas on Tuesday appointed the new leadership of the Fatah committee in the Gaza Strip, its new chairman told Ma'an.

Ahmad Nasar, appointed head of the committee, said that the newly formed group will work to improve Fatah's organizational structure and increase its membership in Gaza.

Faisal Abu Shahla, Muhammad al-Nahal, and Ibrahim Abu al-Naja, and Sameh Nasser, all members of Fatah's revolutionary council, will be part of the committee, Nasar said.

Fatah officials say it is not logistically possible to hold elections for the leadership in Gaza.

The last chairman, Yazid al-Huweihi, resigned last June because he objected to a propose reshuffle of the committee leaders, which saw a number of new faces brought in to the body.

Fatah then postponed the reshuffle.

Fatah held its first major political event in the Gaza Strip on Friday, after Hamas was als permitted to hold West Bank rallies for its anniversary in December.

The parties split Palestine into separate West Bank and Gaza governments in 2007, amid violen infighting