Mishaal warns of foreign influence on Palestinian issue

[ 11/02/2011 - 03:24 PM ]

DAMASCUS, (PIC)-- Khaled Mishaal, the head of Hamas's political bureau, has warned Wednesday of the negative impact of the external influences on the Palestinian issue, stressing that the painful Palestinian political rift must be solved away from those influences.

Although he acknowledged the deep rift between Hamas and Fatah, Mishaal underlined that if both Movements sit together and discuss the internal problems alone coupled with goodwill, and without external interference the Palestinian national reconciliation would be achieved instantly.

"Since 2009, the crises of the Palestinian national reconciliation was focused on the signing of the Egyptian paper and how to implement it on the ground, and the demand of Hamas was to submit to the rules of democracy and to have a genuine partnership to avoid aborting what Hamas and Fatah had agreed", Mishaal pointed out as he met with Kuwaiti journalists on Wednesday.

Nevertheless, the Hamas leader regretted the deadlock in the Palestinian national dialogue after both movements met in Damascus and agreed on a number of crucial points that could have paved the way for the national reconciliation had Fatah Movement not reneged on them later on.

In this regard, Mishaal asserted that there were a number of points agreed upon between the movements but weren’t integrated in the Egyptian paper, adding that the scheduled meeting between the Palestinian movements last October was cancelled due to differences in the views of both factions.

On the fate of the captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, Mishaal said there was no progress so far in this issue blaming the Israeli occupation government for the standstill.

"We in Hamas are keen on releasing Shalit but in exchange we need the Israeli occupation government release the number and the type of Palestinian prisoners in its jails that we had put on our list, which is considered little compared to the number of Palestinian captives in Israeli jails… this is our right but the Israelis are dodging", he underscored.

Moreover, Mishaal revealed that the Israeli occupation army was eager to have Shalit released to show it is concerned about its soldiers, but the Israeli security officials were opposing the army's will alleging that the release of Palestinian captives on Hamas's list could ignite another intifada in the West Bank.

He added that the German mediator tried to convince and tempt Hamas into agreeing to the Israeli conditions that the Movement had rejected in the past but we refused.

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