Fatah official claims that the PA 'did not ask Egypt to close Rafah Crossing'

A senior member of Fatah’s Executive Committee has pointed out that although the Palestinian Authority “strongly” supports the current Egyptian government, the movement did not ask Egypt to close the Rafah Crossing, Quds Press reported on Friday. Azzam Al-Ahmad said that Cairo maintains the right to deal with the issue of Rafah; he denied that Fatah and the PA use their strong relations with Egypt to harm Hamas.

“We do not use this Israeli partitioning language,” he explained. “We are Palestinians and we do not discriminate between Ramallah and Gaza or Jenin and Rafah.” He also denied that Egypt uses such policies.

The Fatah official claimed that the PA has always been asking Egypt to open Rafah, and that his movement believes that Israel controls all of occupied Palestine, including the Gaza Strip.

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Ignoring the fact that Hamas won an overwhelming majority in the 2006 parliamentary elections, Al-Ahmad said that Gaza had been “hijacked by an armed group”, a reference to the Islamic Resistance Movement. He pointed out that the PA has had no sovereignty in Gaza since 2006.

Al-Ahmad said that the only way to end the internal division is through national unity, although he stressed that the Palestinians need no more new dialogues.

Also read: Unity government ‘discriminates and marginalises Gaza’, claims Hamas

When Hamas won the “free and fair” 2006 elections, neither Fatah, Israel, Arab countries nor the West recognised the democratic will of the Palestinian people in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, even though they had all pushed Hamas to participate in the polls.

Backed by Israel and the US, a clique within Fatah tried and failed to stage an armed coup against the democratically-elected Hamas government in 2007. The result was the ongoing Israeli siege on Gaza backed by the international community and Egypt.

Read: Naftali Bennet claims Egypt, PA encourage Israeli offensives in Gaza