Haniyeh: Talks with Zionist entity rejected

Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh said Saturday evening that Palestinians should not enter talks with the Zionist entity in light of the government’s actions across the occupied Palestinian territories.

A statement released by his office following a meeting with South African Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister Ebrahim Ismail Ebrahim said Haniyeh discussed the deteriorating situation in the besieged Gaza Strip and the Hamas government’s rejection of talks with the Zionist entity resulting from Netanyahu’s “insistence to maintain full control over Jerusalem, the Jordan Valley and continued settlement building.”

Haniyeh further briefed the South African delegation on the Palestinian current events, including a unity deal with rival faction Fatah, describing reconciliation as an “irrevocable choice,” the statement read.

The delegation arrived in the Gaza Strip on Saturday via the Rafah crossing and visited areas destroyed by Zionist forces during the War on Gaza between December 2008 and January 2009, meeting with the Samouni family which lost 30 relatives during the assault.