Abbas's Bed of Deception

No Dialogue With Hamas, Says Abbas

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, left, holds talks with his Egyptian counterpart Hosni Mubarak in Alexandria on Wednesday. (EPA)

ALEXANDRIA, Egypt, 9 August 2007 — Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas yesterday insisted there would be no dialogue with Hamas until the Islamists return Gaza to his legitimate authority. Hamas seized the territory in June.

“What Hamas did was a destructive operation which helped those who don’t want to see an independent Palestinian state,” Abbas told journalists after talks with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in the Egyptian port of Alexandria.

“There is no dialogue with Hamas until they go back on what they did and return what they took,” he said, reiterating that he himself had been elected as the legitimate president of the Palestinian Authority.

“They know what they took and they know how to return it,” he said of Hamas, whose fighters ejected Abbas’ Fatah faction from the Gaza Strip on June 15.

Abbas’ words followed a similar declaration by Azzam Al-Ahmad, the chief of Fatah’s parliamentary bloc, in the West Bank.

“To end the crisis, Hamas must end its putsch in the Gaza Strip and return this territory to the elected and legitimate President Mahmoud Abbas,” Ahmad told AFP in Ramallah.

“Afterward, we will be able to sit down immediately and start a national dialogue,” he said.

Abbas fired Hamas Premier Ismail Haniyeh and the rest of a unity Cabinet after the Islamists’ takeover of Gaza. Hamas has refused to recognize the move and Haniyeh still considers himself the legitimate Palestinian premier. However, Haniyeh on Tuesday said he was prepared to “give up” his post in order for the two warring parties to reconcile.

And during a visit to Yemen yesterday, Hamas political supremo Khaled Meshaal accused outside forces of trying to block reconciliation between his movement and the secular Fatah.

Meshaal wants Yemen to play a role in ending inter-Palestinian tensions “in the light of pressure exerted by certain regional and international parties who do not want any reconciliation,” Yemen’s official Saba news agency reported.

Abbas has repeatedly ruled out any talks with the movement that overran security forces loyal to him in the territory.

Israel, keen to support the moderate president in his standoff with the group whose charter calls for the destruction of the Jewish state, has sealed off Gaza following the takeover, allowing in only basic humanitarian aid.

Several hundred Palestinians remain trapped in Egypt since the takeover.

While Israel has allowed many of the original 6,000 stranded Palestinians to go back to Gaza via the Jewish state, no Hamas supporters will do so, fearing arrest.

Instead, they await the reopening of the Rafah crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip, the territory’s only international gateway that does not go via Israel.

The Alexandria talks follow Abbas’ meeting on Monday with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in the West Bank city of Jericho. That was the first time in seven years that such a high-level meeting has taken place on Palestinian territory.

Abbas said he had also discussed with Mubarak a Middle East peace conference proposed by US President George W. Bush for later this year.

Expectations for the conference are low, as neither side can agree on how to proceed ahead of the meeting called in a bid to jumpstart peace talks which have been dormant for more than six years.

Abbas repeated the need for what he called “a real framework” for the creation of a Palestinian state to be discussed at the conference rather than the “declaration of principles” sought by Israel.

“That is something we do not want,” Abbas said. “We have a lot of declarations of principles.” Israel has said it does not plan to enter talks on core issues on a Palestinian state, something the Palestinians are adamant should be on the table.

Meanwhile, Israeli troops shot and killed three Hamas fighters in the Gaza Strip yesterday, ambulance workers and army officials said.

Palestinian medical workers said that Israeli soldiers had killed two Hamas gunmen near a major commercial border crossing with Israel in central Gaza.

An Israeli Army spokesman said a force patrolling the border had shot and killed two fighters after pursuing them into Palestinian territory.

In a second incident, Israeli troops killed a member of Hamas’ Executive Force who was stationed at a roadblock near a border crossing in the northern Gaza Strip, residents and medical workers said.

The army said soldiers had fired at two gunmen who approached the border fence, hitting one of them.

Israeli troops often shoot at Palestinians who approach Gaza’s border with Israel, to try to prevent armed infiltrations. Israel also conducts raids in the area to try to stop militants launching rockets and mortars into Israel.

Meanwhile, President Abbas’ government accidentally paid salaries to almost half the members of rival Hamas’ security force before noticing the error, officials said yesterday.

They said Abbas’ Finance Ministry ordered Tuesday’s payouts to 2,600 members of the Hamas Executive Force to be reversed, but hundreds of fighters had managed to withdraw funds.

“To their surprise, they got phone calls telling them to get their salaries. They rushed to the bank,” said an official in the Hamas-led administration in Gaza.

Asked about the incident, Abbas’ Cabinet Secretary Sadi Al-Kronz told Reuters: “This issue was dealt with, and we have no comment.” The Gaza official said the deposits were part of a general disbursement to civil servants meant to cover July salaries as well as 30 percent of the wages that went unpaid after Hamas was voted into power last year, prompting the Western aid embargo.

The official said the total deposits surpassed $2 million.