Occupied Palestine | فلسطين

France Says it Supports Reconciliation, Government to be Headed in Gaza


Related: When will the UN bring Human Rights to Palestine?

PNN – Palestine News Network –  20.11.11 – 01:50

PNN – French Foreign Minister Bernard Valero told the newspaper al-Sharq al-Awsat on Saturday that the French government supported a reconciliation agreement between Palestinian political factions Fatah and Hamas. Meanwhile, an advisor to Hamas PM Ismail Haniyeh told Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz that the two factions had agreed to base the next Palestinian government in the Gaza Strip.

 

Palestinians demonstrate in Bethlehem on March 15 for national unity (Brendan Work, PNN).

 

Valero called the issue “urgent.”

Progress toward the completion of Palestinian national reconciliation had been in motion earlier this year, with thousands of youths marching in support of national unity on March 15 and an agreement signed shortly thereafter. It stalled out over the summer, but with both Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas and his rivals in Hamas making popular strides with the Palestinian statehood bid and the Gilad Shalit prisoner deal, respectively, a conclusion to the five-year rift is thought to be near.

Earlier this week, the Palestinian prime minister overseeing the West Bank, Salam Fayyad, said he would step down so as not to be seen as an obstacle to reconciliation.  His resignation was one of Hamas’ chief stipulations.

Haniyeh advisor Ahmed Yousef told Israeli news source Ha’aretz on Saturday that the capital of the future Palestinian state would remain Jerusalem, but the interim government would be based in the Gaza Strip.

A Fatah press release, published after last week’s meeting of the PLO, said national reconciliation was “an internal issue over which no outside party has a veto,” a reference to the United States’ threatened veto of any Palestinian statehood bid in the UN Security Council.

Fayez Abu Aita, who issued the press release, said the responsibility of governance in any reconciliation agreement would be shared between Fatah and Hamas and that there was a “positive atmosphere” surrounding the upcoming meeting of Abbas and Haniyeh, scheduled for November 25 in Cairo.

Source and more at the PNN – Palestine News Network




Gaza Under Attack – in pictures | Attacks on Gaza Timeline




Israel’s Jerusalem municipality plans to build more than 50,000 new homes in the city’s occupied eastern sector over two decades:



Of these, the municipality plans:

Read More



Besides this, Israel approved plans to ethnic cleanse 57.000 bedouin from Palestine



Save yourself time. It is only about this : Ethnic Cleansing