Hamas: Abbas is leading conspiracy to strangle Gaza

Hamas accused Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas of conspiring to strangle the Gaza Strip.

The movement’s spokesperson Sami Abu Zuhri said yesterday that statements made by Egyptian President Abdel Fatah Al-Sisi that his military’s flooding of the Egypt-Gaza borders are being carried out “in full coordination with the Palestinian Authority” constitute clear proof that Abbas is leading a conspiracy against Gaza.

This entails “taking a national position against Abbas’s practices which brought disasters onto Gaza,” Abu Zuhri said in a press statement.

During a UN summit in New York, Al-Sisi said: “The measures taken by Egypt to secure its eastern borders are in full coordination with the Palestinian Authority and do not aim to harm our Palestinian brothers in the Gaza Strip.”

“The measures seek to protect the Egyptian borders and maintain Egyptian and Palestinian national security,” Al-Sisi was quoted as saying in a statement released by his office.

The Egyptian army recently began flooding the tunnels along the Egyptian borders with Gaza. Television interviews with Abbas dating back to July last year appear to show that it was his idea to flood tunnels used by Palestinians to alleviate the impact of the siege imposed on them.