GAZA, Jan. 24 (Xinhua) -- A senior Hamas official on Tuesday denied reports that Hamas chief Khaled Mashaal will visit the Gaza Strip soon.
"I do not think the visit will be soon," Khalil Al-Hayya, a Hamas official based in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, told Xinhua. "Mashaal intends to visit Gaza, but the visit is subjected to necessary security and political arrangements."
Mashaal, who was born in the West Bank, has never visited Gaza, where Hamas has been holding sway since routing forces loyal to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in 2007. Mashaal is currently based in Syria.
Al-Hayya said that Mashaal has intended to visit Gaza since Egypt brokered a reconciliation agreement between Hamas and Abbas' Fatah party in May 2011, but nothing practical was made.
Earlier, a former adviser to Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haneya said that Mashaal will visit Gaza together with Abbas, who has not set foot in Gaza since 2007.
Another Hamas official said on condition of anonymity that a join visit by Mashaal and Abbas to Gaza would be too early as long as the two parties did not complete reconciliation.
Mashaal will start his first official visit to Jordan on Sunday since he was expelled from Amman in 1999. A senior Qatari official will accompany Mashaal in his visit that Jordan says aims at opening a new era in the relation between Amman and the Islamist Palestinian movement.
Hamas was buoyed by the rise of Islamic parties in Egypt and Tunisia, but found itself under Arab pressure to condemn the Syrian regime, which hosted Hamas in Damascus.
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