Egypt accepts Palestinian factions’ amendments to reconciliation deal

Egypt has accepted the Palestinian factions’ changes to the second reconciliation proposal, informed Palestinian sources revealed.

The sources, who preferred not to be named, said in an exclusive interview with Shehab news site that Cairo agreed to involve all the Palestinian factions in the national dialogue sessions instead of limiting the dialogue to Fatah and Hamas and to consider the Cairo Fatah-Hamas reconciliation agreement signed in 2011 a reference to all future agreements.

According to the sources, the Palestinian factions proposed to solve the Gaza employees’ issue according to the mechanism set in the first reconciliation proposal and to include the matter in truce talks.

They pointed out that the issue of lifting the Palestinian Authority’s punitive measures on the Gaza Strip is under discussion with Egypt proposing to “orally” ask Fatah to do so, while the Palestinian factions including Hamas insist that the measures should be lifted before reconciliation talks begin.

Read: Hamas accepts Egyptian vision for Palestinian reconciliation

Hamas has asked Egypt to involve the Palestinian resistance factions in consultations on national reconciliation and truce with Israel.

The movement met with the factions on Wednesday to form a national position on the truce.

The Islamic Jihad delegation arrived in Cairo two days ago while the PLO delegation was expected to arrive yesterday to meet with Egyptian intelligence officials.

Meetings have already been held with the Freedom Movement, the Mujahideen Brigades, the Resistance Committees and the Popular Resistance Committees.