Hamas: Israel is blackmailing the Palestinian Authority into thwarting the reconciliation

The Palestinian resistance movement Hamas considered the Israeli bill that seeks to bar the issuance of amnesty for Palestinian prisoners serving life sentences in Israeli jails, as an attempt to blackmail the Palestinian Authority into thwarting the internal Palestinian reconciliation.

Former Palestinian minister Wasfi Kabha told the Jordanian newspaper Assabeel that Israeli is putting huge pressures on the PA to return to negotiations and withdraw from the internal reconciliation. Kabha called on the PA not to succumb to this blackmail. Seven Israeli ministers from the Likud, Yisrael Beytenu and Jewish Home parties voted in favour of the bill; three ministers from Yesh Atid and Hatnua parties opposed it.

Commenting on the fulfilment of the reconciliation agreement, Kabha criticised the arrests and summoning of Palestinians in the West Bank, which he said have been on the increase recently. A leading figure of Hamas expressed his fear of the presence of a group within Fatah, whose own interests are tied to the occupation, which makes the unity of the Palestinian people not a great concern for them.

He warned the Palestinian Authority not to consider the ‘reconciliation file’ as a pressure card that could be used in negotiations with the US and Israel to improve their positions in the negotiations process, adding that the Palestinian people will no longer tolerate new disappointments.

The bill seeks to empower the Israeli court, by enabling it to add a phrase to rulings of life sentence issued against prisoners to ensure that the Israeli president is not allowed to pardon convicts sentenced to death.

The bill is related to granting amnesty to Palestinian prisoners and releasing them in the context of prisoner swap deals of goodwill gestures amid peace negotiations.

Source: Assabeel – Hamza Haymour