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Fatah to Asharq Al-Awsat: Our Stance towards US Hinges on Commitment to Int’l Resolutions on Jerusalem

Fatah official Azzam al-Ahmad (L) and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh. REUTERS file photo
Fatah official Azzam al-Ahmad (L) and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh. REUTERS file photo
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Fatah to Asharq Al-Awsat: Our Stance towards US Hinges on Commitment to Int’l Resolutions on Jerusalem

Fatah official Azzam al-Ahmad (L) and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh. REUTERS file photo
Fatah official Azzam al-Ahmad (L) and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh. REUTERS file photo

Attempts to complete the Palestinian reconciliation process, which has resumed in Cairo over the weekend, have been disrupted by unsettled disagreements over the Palestinian Authority’s failure to deploy its full authority over the Gaza Strip, according to Fatah, while Hamas is calling for easing pressure on the area.

Well-informed Egyptian sources told Asharq Al-Awsat that a meeting between the Hamas delegation and the representatives of the Egyptian intelligence body, in Cairo on Saturday evening, touched on government employees appointed by Hamas during the period of division, and the PA’s refusal to acknowledge their rights. The meeting also discussed Fatah’s reservations regarding the establishment of a security apparatus in Gaza.

Hamas also raised the problem of power shortage, according to the same sources.

In remarks to Asharq Al-Awsat, Azzam al-Ahmad, a member of the Fatah Central Committee, said: “An agreement has already been signed with (Hamas) and must be strictly implemented.”

He explained that the Palestinian government has not yet imposed its authority over the entire Gaza Strip, “while (the parallel government) of Hamas is still operating in the sector.”

Although the source told Asharq Al-Awsat that representatives of the Fatah movement were not present for the reconciliation talks, he said he expected members of the movement to join the meetings soon.

“It may be after tomorrow [Tuesday], if consensus was reached on some of the files under negotiation in Cairo,” the sources said.

In the same context, Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry met with Al-Ahmad to discuss consultations carried out by the Palestinian side both at the regional and international levels on the issue of Jerusalem, spokesman of the Egyptian Foreign Ministry, Ahmed Abu Zeid, said.

He added that discussions focused on the impact of the US decision to consider Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, on the role of the United States as a broker of the peace process and the future of a just settlement to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

“The Palestinian Authority will not back down before the United States declares its commitment to the legitimate resolutions on Jerusalem,” Al-Ahmed told Asharq Al-Awsat.

“The United States is part of this society and cannot dictate its will to everyone by force,” he added.

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was on Monday in Cairo, where he held talks with Shoukry.

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Displaced Syrians Who Have Returned Home Face a Fragile Future, Says UN Refugees Chief

A handout picture released by the official Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) shows Syria's interim Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani (R) meeting with United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi in the Syrian capital Damascus on June 20, 2025. (SANA / AFP)
A handout picture released by the official Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) shows Syria's interim Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani (R) meeting with United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi in the Syrian capital Damascus on June 20, 2025. (SANA / AFP)
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Displaced Syrians Who Have Returned Home Face a Fragile Future, Says UN Refugees Chief

A handout picture released by the official Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) shows Syria's interim Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani (R) meeting with United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi in the Syrian capital Damascus on June 20, 2025. (SANA / AFP)
A handout picture released by the official Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) shows Syria's interim Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani (R) meeting with United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi in the Syrian capital Damascus on June 20, 2025. (SANA / AFP)

UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi said Friday that more than two million Syrian refugees and internally displaced people have returned home since the fall of the government of Bashar al-Assad in December.

Speaking during a visit to Damascus that coincided with World Refugee Day, Grandi described the situation in Syria as “fragile and hopeful” and warned that the returnees may not remain if Syria does not get more international assistance to rebuild its war-battered infrastructure.

“How can we make sure that the return of the Syrian displaced or refugees is sustainable, that people don’t move again because they don’t have a house or they don’t have a job or they don’t have electricity?” Grandi asked a small group of journalists after the visit, during which he met with Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani and spoke with returning refugees.

“What is needed for people to return, electricity but also schools, also health centers, also safety and security,” he said.

Syria’s near 14-year civil war, which ended last December with the ouster of Assad in a lightning opposition offensive, killed nearly half a million people and displaced half the country’s pre-war population of 23 million.

Grandi said that 600,000 Syrians have returned to the country since Assad’s fall, and about another 1.5 million internally displaced people returned to their homes in the same period.

However, there is little aid available for the returnees, with multiple crises in the region -- including the new Israel-Iran war -- and shrinking support from donors. The UNHCR has reduced programs for Syrian refugees in neighboring countries, including healthcare, education and cash support for hundreds of thousands in Lebanon.

“The United States suspended all foreign assistance, and we were very much impacted, like others, and also other donors in Europe are reducing foreign assistance,” Grandi said, adding: “I tell the Europeans in particular, be careful. Remember 2015, 2016 when they cut food assistance to the Syrian refugees in Lebanon and Jordan, the Syrians moved toward Europe.”

Some have also fled for security reasons since Assad's fall. While the situation has stabilized since then, particularly in Damascus, the new government has struggled to extend its control over all areas of the country and to bring a patchwork of former opposition groups together into a national army.

Grandi said the UNHCR has been in talks with the Lebanese government, which halted official registration of new refugees in 2015, to register the new refugees and “provide them with basic assistance.”

“This is a complex community, of course, for whom the chances of return are not so strong right now,” he said. He said he had urged the Syrian authorities to make sure that measures taken in response to the attacks on civilians “are very strong and to prevent further episodes of violence.”

The Israel-Iran war has thrown further fuel on the flames in a region already dealing with multiple crises. Grandi noted that Iran is hosting millions of refugees from Afghanistan who may now be displaced again.

The UN does not yet have a sense of how many people have fled the conflict between Iran and Israel, he said.

“We know that some Iranians have gone to neighboring countries, like Azerbaijan or Armenia, but we have very little information. No country has asked for help yet,” he said. “And we have very little sense of the internal displacement, because my colleagues who are in Iran - they’re working out of bunkers because of the bombs.”