Palestine Prime Minister Rami al-Hamdallah on Tuesday, chaired the first cabinet session in the Gaza Strip since 2014, in a move towards reconciliation between the mainstream Fatah party and Islamist group Hamas. Hamas seized the Gaza Strip in 2007, by overpowering the Fatah government, and has ruled the impoverished desert enclave of two million people since.
Reconciliation process
The Cabinet session is a major step in a reconciliation process promoted by neighbouring Egypt and other U.S.-allied Arab countries, Mr. Hamdallah said.
“Today, we stand before an important, historical moment as we begin to get over our wounds, put our differences aside and place the higher national interest above all else,” he added.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said the Palestinians were engaging in “fictitious reconciliations”, and referred to Iranian funding for Hamas, which has fought three wars with Israel since 2008.
“The way we see it is very simple: recognise the State of Israel, dismantle the Hamas military wing, cut the ties to Iran, which calls for our destruction,” he said in remarks broadcast on Army Radio.
Israeli-Palestinian talks have been frozen since 2014 over issues such as Fatah-Hamas reconciliation and Israeli settlement-building in occupied territory.
Visiting the Jewish settlement of Maale Adumim in the occupied West Bank on Tuesday, Mr. Netanyahu said “thousands of housing units” would be added to the community of 40,000 people near Jerusalem. He gave no time frame.
