RAMALLAH, Tuesday, November 06, 2018 (WAFA) - A senior Palestinian official denied on Tuesday Israeli reports that the Palestinian leadership has agreed to support truce between Hamas and Israel in return for the entry of funds into Gaza through Israel.
Azzam al-Ahmad, member of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and of Fatah Central Committee, said these reports were unfounded.
Ahmad also denied in statements to Voice of Palestine radio that the issue of paying Israel to supply the Gaza Strip with some needs has been discussed by President Mahmoud Abbas and his Egyptian counterpart Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.
He said that Israel had tried this in the past in the context of pressuring the Palestinian leadership and worked to bring funds into Gaza while spending part of it on diesel and salaries, describing this as "a dangerous behavior."
He continued: The issue of bringing money into Gaza for the purpose of paying salaries and fuel is an internal Palestinian affair, stressing that those who want to help the Palestinian people should do that through its legitimate authority and through the PLO, not by dividing the Palestinians.
"Various contacts have been held several months ago by various parties on the truce with Hamas, including by Qatar and the United Nations envoy for the peace process, Nickolay Mladenov," said Ahmad.
He added that Egypt was also moving on a different track from Qatar and Mladenov, while Hamas spoke in different languages, stressing that the position of the leadership and all factions and the Egyptian president is that "calm and ending bloodshed is one thing and what Hamas is talking about is something else."
Ahmad said that the truce should be in the form of an agreement by the Palestinians as a whole and represented by the PLO, as was the case in 2014, but as a principle of calm and quiet and maintaining peaceful popular resistance, it is another matter. “We are always against bloodshed without reason because there were many mistakes and what is going on now confirms this matter,” he said.
He said that truce under the conditions set by Hamas is a politicization of the issue. He said that Mladenov has also politicized it and succeeded in doing that when they linked the issue of funds paid to Israel to providing Gaza with some of its needs with the calm, which is not permissible at all.
Ahmad stressed that the legitimate authority should be in charge of this issue, stressing at the same time the continuation of the peaceful marches to express the opinion of the people and their right to resist occupation in the manner and in accordance with the present reality and as agreed upon with everyone.
M.K.
