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Fatah, Hamas Delegations in Cairo to Finalize Palestinian Reconciliation Talks

A protester waves a Palestinian flag in front of the Jewish settlement of Ofra during clashes near the West Bank village of Deir Jarir near Ramallah April 26, 2013. (Reuters)
A protester waves a Palestinian flag in front of the Jewish settlement of Ofra during clashes near the West Bank village of Deir Jarir near Ramallah April 26, 2013. (Reuters)
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Fatah, Hamas Delegations in Cairo to Finalize Palestinian Reconciliation Talks

A protester waves a Palestinian flag in front of the Jewish settlement of Ofra during clashes near the West Bank village of Deir Jarir near Ramallah April 26, 2013. (Reuters)
A protester waves a Palestinian flag in front of the Jewish settlement of Ofra during clashes near the West Bank village of Deir Jarir near Ramallah April 26, 2013. (Reuters)

Delegations from the Hamas and Fatah movements arrived in Cairo on Sunday to finalize Palestinian reconciliation discussions.

The two delegations are looking forward to reaching agreements on outstanding issues before President Mahmoud Abbas issues a decree on setting dates for holding legislative and presidential elections, informed sources told Asharq Al-Awsat.

Hamas said on Sunday its delegation, which is headed by deputy chief of its politburo Saleh al-Arouri, wants to complete discussions and talks with Fatah on national reconciliation.

It underlined its insistence on ensuring the success of efforts to establish a joint strategy for “struggle” that will include all Palestinian patriots to confront challenges facing the Palestinian cause.

The Hamas delegation also includes bureau member Khalil al-Hayya. The Fatah delegation is headed by Secretary-General of its Central Committee Jibril Rajoub and committee members Rawhi Fattouh and Ahmed Halas.

The meetings put an end to speculation that Fatah was withdrawing from the reconciliation efforts in wake of Joe Biden’s victory in the US election.

Some reports had accused Abbas of pulling out from the talks because he wanted to use the reconciliation to pressure the US and Israel by forging an alliance with Hamas, which is designated as terrorist by Washington and Tel Aviv, against the US peace proposal and Israeli annexation plan.

Fatah and Hamas had agreed in Istanbul in September to first hold the general elections, then presidential polls, followed by the election of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) national council, within six months.

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Gaza Officials Say 80 Palestinian Corpses Handed over by Israel

A man checks a body returned by Israel, before burial in a cemetery in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, Monday, Aug. 5, 2024. (AP)
A man checks a body returned by Israel, before burial in a cemetery in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, Monday, Aug. 5, 2024. (AP)
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Gaza Officials Say 80 Palestinian Corpses Handed over by Israel

A man checks a body returned by Israel, before burial in a cemetery in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, Monday, Aug. 5, 2024. (AP)
A man checks a body returned by Israel, before burial in a cemetery in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, Monday, Aug. 5, 2024. (AP)

Gaza's Civil Defense agency said it received the bodies of 80 unidentified Palestinians from Israel on Monday, which it buried in a mass grave.

"We received 80 bodies inside 15 bags, with more than four martyrs in each bag, each wrapped in a single shroud", Civil Defense director Yamen Abu Suleiman told AFP.

Abu Suleiman said Israeli authorities did not provide any information about the bodies, including their names or where they were found or taken from.

"We do not know if they are martyrs (killed in Gaza) or prisoners from (Israel's) jails", he added.

AFP journalists on the scene saw men in hazmat suits inspecting the corpses wrapped in blue plastic sheeting, before unloading them from the shipping container they had arrived in.

The bodies were then laid in a line for burial in a mass grave dug in the sand, with scores of Palestinians watching from the side.

The bodies were later buried at the Turkish cemetery, near Khan Yunis, the main city in the southern part of Gaza, AFP journalists said.

- A mother's search -

"You will ask me the reason why I put all the bodies in a mass grave?" said Tabesh Abu Ata from the Turkish cemetery.

"Because I have no capabilities to bury each one in an individual grave, (there are no) stones or tiles" for that, he said.

Salwa Karaz, a displaced woman from Gaza City in the north, told AFP that she had gone to the cemetery hoping to find her 32-year-old son Marwan, who went missing in January. He left behind an eight-month-old son.

"When we learned that 80 bodies had been handed over, we came to search in hopes of finding him among them", the 59-year-old told AFP.

"As of now, we have not learned anything," she lamented.

"We will try to identify him through his clothes. He was wearing brown pants, a navy blue shirt, a black jacket, and beige boots."

She last saw him leaving on his bicycle from their shelter in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza.

In a statement released Monday, Hamas said Israel's delivery of bodies without identities "exacerbates the suffering of the families of martyrs and the missing, who seek to know the fate of their abducted children or to bury their martyrs in a dignified manner".

The Israeli military did not offer an immediate comment.

In December, Hamas government sources said Israel returned the bodies of 80 Palestinians killed in Gaza after taking them from morgues and graves to check there were no hostages among them.

The bodies were then buried in Gaza, the sources added.

The war in Gaza began when Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, which resulted in the death of 1,197 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.

Militants also seized 251 hostages, 111 of whom are still held captive in Gaza, including 39 the military says are dead.

Israel's retaliatory air and ground campaign in Gaza has killed at least 39,623 people, according to the health ministry in Hamas-ruled Gaza, which does not give details of civilian and militant deaths.