Campaign urges reconciliation between Fatah, Hamas

Dozens of Palestinians launched a campaign to urge President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah party and the Islamic Hamas movement to achieve national reconciliation.

At a press conference held here on Sunday, Alaa Hamouda, spokesman of the mass campaign, said restoration of the internal unity "will contribute to ending the Israeli blockade against the Palestinians and help us confront the Israeli threats against our cause", reports Xinhua news agency.

"Israel and the US are doing their best to end the Palestinian presence on our lands by expanding Israel's presence and implementing the Deal of the Century deal," he noted.

Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip in the summer of 2007, after weeks of fighting with Abbas' security forces.

Since then, an internal political and geographical division over administrative, financial and security issues has remained between the two sides despite a series of Arab and international mediations.

In March 2018, then Palestinian Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah survived an explosion when his convoy entered Gaza, an incident that Abbas blamed on Hamas.

Despite a history of strife, Fatah and Hamas recently announced their agreement to put differences aside to confront Israeli plan to annex parts of the West Bank.

"What is happening now is a national unity that aims at confronting the Israeli annexation plan.

"It is not based on the unity of the Palestinian political ideology," Husam Dajany, a Gaza-based political expert, told Xinhua.

Reconciliation is a "compulsory corridor" between the two movements to confront the challenges that beset the Palestinian cause, including the Israeli annexation scheme, al-Dajany noted.

Mohammed Hamouda, a campaign member, expressed his hope to "unify Gaza and the West Bank to confront all Israeli threats".

"In the light of the US-Israeli alliance, the Palestinian people and their cause are under the threat of being unable to establish an independent state with Jerusalem as its capital," the activist told Xinhua..