Al-Jazeera leaks reveal negotiation scandal

A senior Hamas official on Monday said documents released by pan Arab Al-Jazeera channel on a decade of Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations were “big political scandal.”

The classified documents “drove the final nail in the Palestinian National Authority’s coffin,” said Mahmoud Zahar, a Gaza-based Hamas outspoken leader.

The PNA was ready to give up Jewish parts in East Jerusalem, which the Palestinians seek as a future capital, including Jewish settlements there, according to the Qatar-based TV network.

The documents also said that the Palestinian negotiators were ready to hand the compound in which Al-Aqsa mosque under the international control. The compound, known as Haram as-Sharif, is the third holiest shrine in Islam.

Al-Jazeera said it has obtained more than 1,600 documents, maps and minutes of decade-long records of negotiations.

Zahar accused the PNA of “selling Jerusalem and giving up the right of return” of Palestinian refugees.

Most of the records revealed so far goes back to 2008, when the negotiations were under supervision by the former U.S. administration.