TEL AVIV — Egyptian intelligence has told the Palestinian factions that it will send a delegation to the Gaza Strip to oversee the enforcement of the reconciliation understandings between Hamas, Fatah and the rest of the Palestinian groups, a Palestinian official participating in reconciliation talks in Cairo told Breitbart Jerusalem.
According to Saleh Nasser, a representative to the talks from the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, meetings on Sunday and Tuesday dealt with completing the transfer of power in Gaza to the Palestinian Authority government and the removal of sanctions that the PA placed on Gaza.
The reconciliation understandings reached between Fatah and Hamas in 2011, which included the holding of elections in the PA, will form the base of the current discussions in Cairo, said Nasser, and see the PLO rebuilt from the ground up, allowing Hamas and Islamic Jihad to join the umbrella institution.
According to Nasser, discussions on Monday focused on the reconstruction of PLO institutions to bring Fatah and Hamas into the fold together.
Meanwhile, a Palestinian official who has been present for the meetings told Breitbart Jerusalem that it was decided under the moderation of Egyptian intelligence not to raise the issue of the weapons owned by the Hamas terrorist group and other Palestinian factions in the current round of talks in order to keep them on track.
“It was decided that a special committee will be created to discuss the issue of the weapons in the hands of the organizations and the need for the decision to use these weapons to be a broad, national Palestinian decision and not one left in the hands of every one of the Palestinian organizations,” he said.
The official noted that representatives of the Palestinian Authority and Fatah, alongside the Egyptians, expressed their concern that renewed ties between Hamas and Iran, as well as Hamas and Hezbollah, and the connections between Islamic Jihad and the Iranians could remain a source of insecurity and instability in the Gaza Strip as the PA returns to full control.
According to the official, Egyptian intelligence is currently providing guarantees that so-called armed groups in the Gaza Strip – in other words, terrorist organizations – will not be a source of military escalation with Israel.
The matter of the tens of thousands of Palestinians who were employed by Hamas is expected to be transferred for discussion in a committee that will convene specifically to address this issue, said the source. This committee will attempt to find a solution to employ or compensate employees of the Hamas terrorist group who are expected to lose their jobs after PA employees return to their work that came to an end when Hamas took over the Gaza Strip in 2007, the source added.
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