Hamas, Fatah delegations head to Cairo to resume dialogue

Delegations from Fatah and Hamas movements on Friday headed to Cairo to complete the reconciliation talks and settle the differences that have lately arisen.

Hamas’s spokesman, Fawzi Barhoum, said in a brief statement on Friday that a Hamas delegation led by the Movement’s chief in Gaza, Yahya al-Sinwar, went to Egypt to discuss ways of advancing the reconciliation process, but he did not reveal further details.

For his part, the official spokesman for Fatah movement, Osama al-Qawasmi, said that member of the Fatah Central Committee, Azzam al-Ahmad, arrived in Cairo on Friday evening to meet with the Hamas delegation under the auspices of the Egyptian intelligence service.

Fatah and Hamas on 12th October signed a reconciliation agreement in Cairo to allow the Palestinian Authority (PA) government to fully administer the Gaza Strip, alongside the occupied West Bank, by 1st December.

The two movements, however, asked Egypt later to postpone the complete handover of authority until 10th December after a state of confusion prevailed on Wednesday in a number of government institutions in Gaza following the return of some old employees to their former workplaces based on a decision issued by the PA government in violation of the recent Cairo agreement.