Hamas will instruct its government in the Gaza Strip to release detainees held on political grounds and reopen the Fatah party headquarters within the next two days, a top Fatah official said on Monday.
Speaking days after his first trip since 2007 to the besieged coastal enclave, Central Committee member Nabil Sha'ath said Fatah officials were already permitted to visit without any special permit.
"I informed Hamas that I rejected their security escort or visits to their government offices, and I held meetings freely," he said following a meeting in Cairo with Amr Moussa, the Arab League secretary-general.
Sha'ath said Hamas requested that its members receive better treatment in the West Bank, and that he responded, "They have freedom of movement and they have no problems. When someone from Hamas told me a Hamas delegation wanted to visit the West Bank, I said: 'Welcome; I came here with permission from the occupying authorities, so whoever wants to visit the West Bank is more than welcome.'"
He said his main objective during the visit was to prove that the state of political division was not irreversible. "We do not want to deepen the division, which is why President Abbas decided that executive and legislative members should visit the strip to break the boycott," he said, pointing out that "this is no substitute for signing the Egyptian document," a plan put forth by Cairo to bring the two sides together.
"Failure to conclude reconciliation before [next month's Arab] summit will mean our participation will be for the purposes of reconciliation, but if there has been an agreement before the summit, it will allow us to demand political support to remove the siege and face the occupation," the Fatah official explained.
Asked about how he felt when he visited the site of his demolished house in Gaza, Sha'ath said that "the situation is sad; it's true that my house is destroyed, but the country is more important than my house."
In Cairo, Sha'ath said he and Moussa discussed efforts to secure fuel shipments to the Gaza Energy Authority to run its sole power plant. According to Sha'ath, caretaker Prime Minister Salam Fayyad "has assured me that work is being done to provide electricity to Gaza to ease the siege imposed on its citizens, and other gestures from Fatah in order to encourage the Egyptian paper's ratification."
He added: "I spoke to Amr Moussa about the political process, the outcome of US envoy George Mitchell's visit to the region, and Palestinian steadfastness for [withstanding] pressure, as well as negotiations, pointing out that our stance needs Arab support in every respect."
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