Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi urged Palestinians to overcome their differences and be ready to co-exist with each other and with Israelis in safety and Security, while calling on Israel, with which Egypt has had a peace agreement for more than 40 years, to seek a similar peace agreement with its Palestinian neighbors. President al-Sisi said, “I tell the Palestinian people it’s extremely important to unite behind the goal and to overcome differences and seize opportunities and to be ready to accept co-existence with the others, the Israelis, in safety and security and to achieve stability and security for all. And I say, and I direct my call to the Israeli people; we have an excellent experience in Egypt in peace with you for longer than 40 years, we can repeat this experience and this excellent step once again, the peace and the security of the Israeli citizen, together with the peace and security of the Palestinian citizen,” the Egyptian President stressed.
Meanwhile in the Gaza Strip, the Islamist Hamas organization called on Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to respond to the disbanding of its shadow government in the Gaza Strip by ending his sanctions on the impoverished enclave. The political bureau chief of the Islamist group, Ismail Haniyeh said, “We await a step from our brothers in Ramallah, not as something in return but as taking parallel steps to revive hopes in concluding the national reconciliation, and that was one of the issues I pointed in my phone call yesterday that I initiated with Mr. President Abu Mazen (Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas), who is in New York at the General Assembly meeting, and I pointed in a brotherly and national sense that, us, as Hamas, have took the steps with all will, consciousness and honesty, to dissolve the administrative committee and now our people expect from you, Abu Mazen to suspend and cancel the measures and begin a dialogue,” the Islamist leader stressed.
Following Egyptian-mediated reconciliation talks with Abbas’s Western-backed Fatah faction, the Islamist Hamas announced earlier this week that it would dissolve its Gaza “administrative committee” to enable the president’s administration to retake control. The announcement promised relief for Gazans who, under a decade of Hamas rule, have endured poverty, three wars with Israel and Cairo’s cold shoulder. Yet, implementation may hinge on power-sharing negotiations that hindered previous attempts for unity. Mending fences with Abbas would be another step in Hamas’ diplomatic push to improve relations with its neighbor Egypt, which has kept its frontier with Gaza largely closed and accused the Islamist group in the past of aiding Islamist militants in Egypt’s Sinai desert, an allegation Hamas vehemently denies.
