Egyptian journalist: Sha’ath visit to Gaza serves as a tranquilizer
Egyptian journalist Ibrahim Al-Darawi, who is well-acquainted with the Palestinian political affairs, opined on Saturday that the visit of Fatah official Nabil Sha’ath to Gaza Strip was meant to calm the Palestinian public for a while till the futile negotiations process with the Israeli occupation is re-endorsed.
In an interview with the PIC, Darawi explained that former PA chief Mahmoud Abbas has reneged on his conditions of halting Israeli settlement activity before he can resume negotiations again.
According to Darawi, Abbas’s disavowal of his pledges was confirmed after he met with Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak in Cairo Saturday to discuss the peace process and the Palestinian reconciliation.
He said that Mubarak convinced Abbas not to stick to his conditions to resume the talks in order for the US plan for the negotiations to progress, especially after the visit of US convoy George Mitchell to the region to promote that plan.
He added that both leaders discussed the Palestinian reconciliations and the visit of Sha’ath to Gaza in a bid to push the process and to calm the Palestinian public over the internal political rift.
In the West Bank, Palestinian lawmaker Dr. Omar Abdul Razeq of Hamas welcomed the visit of Sha’ath to Gaza Strip, stressing that Hamas officials in the West Bank must be given the same square of freedom in order to enable them push the reconciliation efforts forward.
“The visit of Sha’ath to Gaza Strip serves as clear proof that Fatah faction is still allowed to work in the Strip which is not the case with Hamas Movement in the West Bank because we are totally banned by the PA security forces to work on orders of US officer Keith Dayton and the CIA”, asserted Abdul Razeq in a statement.
In this regard, Abdul Razeq called on Hamas and Fatah to exploit the good atmosphere prevailed after Sha’ath’s visit to call for an urgent meeting for the PLC to convene to discuss the reconciliation and to confront the Israeli measures against the Palestinian people.
“The only solution for any Palestinian internal conflict is dialogue and we are all obliged to strive hard to bail the Palestinian people out of this dilemma, and we should take practical steps as gestures of goodwill, including freeing political detainees and halting random arrests against Palestinian activists”, the Hamas official underscored.
Meanwhile, Abbas’s security forces in the West Bank have kidnapped Friday 11 Hamas supporters, including university students in different parts of the region.
Hamas Movement in the West Bank confirmed in a statement that Abbas’s forces stormed the house of Hammam Al-Shanti, a student in Al-Najah University, in Qalqilia district and arrested him without an arrest warrant.
Six other Hamas supporters were also arrested at the hand of Abbas’s militia in the city although they were recently freed from the jails of Abbas on court orders.
In Ramallah city, Al-Quds University student Mohammed Shuraiteh was also rounded up at his house in the Mazra’a village, west of the city. Another Palestinian citizen, Ahmad Sameeh Shetat, was also rounded up at his home in Al-Jalazoon refugee camp near the city.
In Tulkarem city, a student at Al-Najah University Abdul Rahman Odeh was kidnapped after Abbas’s militias summoned him for interrogation. Odeh was previously held in Abbas’s jails.
Completing the work of Abbas militias, the Israeli occupation forces kidnapped Emran Mathloom and Ahmad Hijja, both are members of the students’ council in Bir Zeit University, at a check point.
Sources in Hamas Movement in the West Bank confirmed that the kidnapping was part of the security coordination between the IOF troops and Abbas’s security forces in the West Bank against activists of the Islamic bloc in all the West Bank universities in a bid to bloc them from contesting the students’ elections in those universities.
