Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas met late on Monday with a delegation from the Islamic resistance movement Hamas in the West Bank to discuss the composition of the unity government, according to Hassan Yousef, a top Hamas official.
The Hamas delegation included Speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council Aziz Dweik, Omar Abdel-Razek, and MP Mohammed Totah.
Al-Fatah’s delegate to the reconciliation process Azzam Al-Ahmad is scheduled to visit Gaza shortly to continue consultations on forming the unity government.
This is the first time that Abbas has met with senior Hamas leaders in the West Bank since the rival parties announced the end of their divisions on 23 April.
The Al-Araby Al-Jadid news site quoted Yousef as saying that: “The Hamas leaders in the Gaza Strip are involved and familiar with all aspects of forming the unity government, since the dialogue began in Gaza and the parties announced the end of their divisions there; therefore, the practical steps to forming the government will be there, too.”
Yousef pointed out that the meeting between Abbas and Hamas “came about to emphasise the start of the reconciliation process and the importance of providing the appropriate grounds for it, as a prelude to following through the reconciliation once and for all.”
According to Yousef, Abbas and the Hamas delegation discussed the political arrests in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, as well as ways to end the hostile media campaigns between the two movements.
Meanwhile, a former minister in the Hamas government, Nasser Al-Deen Al-Shaer, told Al- Araby Al-Jadid that the two sides have agreed to expedite forming the consensus government, stressing that during the next few days there will be positive moves.
Al-Shaer expressed his hope that the unity government would even be formed before the agreed upon deadline.