GAZA, (PIC)-- Sound and clear, Palestinian prime minister Ismael Haneyya has affirmed Sunday that Hamas Movement was and still is willing to end the inter-Palestinian political rift, delineating five main pillars to achieve such reconciliation.
Haneyya was speaking to hundreds of thousands of Hamas supporters in Gaza Strip commemorating the 21st anniversary of the Movement in Gaza city, where he also reiterated Hamas's position of liberating the entire Palestinian soil from the Israeli occupation.
The siege:
The prime minister also spoke about the unjust economic siege that the Israeli occupation government has been imposing on the tiny Strip for nearly three years, but intensified it 18 months ago after Hamas took control of Gaza security.
"This is a not a siege on the people only, but it is a siege against the entire Palestinian project… they [enemies of the Palestinian people] don’t want this project to win or expand thinking that the siege would push us to the corner or it could confine us in a narrow Palestinian area", said Haneyya.
He also deprecated the international community for the passive stand it has been adopting towards the siege despite the growing number of Palestinian victims dying every day because of it.
"This unjust blockade doesn’t unveil the suffering of the Palestinian people in Gaza only, but rather it also reveal the kind and size of the crime that the international community is committing against them," he said.
Hailing the international figures that showed solidarity with the besieged Palestinians in Gaza through sending relief ships to the costal Strip, Haneyya underlined that the blockade won't succeed in isolating the Palestinian people from the Arab Ummah and the free people of the world.
"We were responsible enough in confronting the siege and its bad repercussions as we extended all the help and assistance we could afford to our Palestinian people as we neither receive money form the USA nor do we receive funds from donor countries, he pointed alluding to the hundreds of million of dollars poured by the USA and the Europeans to the "illegitimate PA government under Salam Fayyad" in Ramallah city.
Furthermore, Haneyya unveiled parts of his government's plan for the year 2009, including preserving free school education, increasing salary of the Palestinian teachers by 5%, and releasing an urgent assistance to 3000 university students and 10000 poor Palestinian families in occupied Palestine.
Reacting to the statements of Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni of transferring the Palestinians in the 1948-ouucpied lands to the "future Palestinian state", Haneyya said: "We say to Livni, to the Israeli leaders, and to the whole world that the Palestinians of the 1948-occupied lands will not come to us, but rather we will go them Allah willing".
The prominent PA figure also stressed Hamas's desire to restore national unity, and end the political rift in the Palestinian arena, emphasizing that the national dialogue should start without conditions.
He spoke about five "inseparable files", namely the reformation national harmony government, the restructuring of the PA security forces on national basis, the reforming of the PLO, inter-Palestinian reconciliation, and the PA presidential and legislative elections, that, according to Haneyya, must be taken and implemented as one bundle in order to bury the hatchet once and for all.
He stressed that national talks, discussions, and understandings should precede signing any document, underlining that the PA leadership in Ramallah should take the first step by releasing all Hamas political detainees from the PA jails in the West Bank, and to stop chasing and arresting Palestinian resistance fighters there.
"Let them (Abbas's security forces in the West Bank) release our cadres today, and they would find us in Cairo [for the dialogue] the following day as we couldn’t sit for national dialogue while our brothers in the West Bank are under the sword," the prime minister explained.
In this regard, Haneyya stressed that any party willing to sponsor and take the credit for achieving the Palestinian reconciliation must stand equal distance from all disputing parties.
Fragile truce:
As far as the fragile truce between the Palestinian resistance factions in Gaza Strip, and the Israeli occupation government was concerned, Haneyya underlined that there will not be an extension for the truce (scheduled to end on the 19 th of this month) unless the Israeli occupation abide by all its terms, including lifting the siege and opening all crossing points of Gaza among other terms.
"The evaluation of the Palestinian resistance to the 6-month-old calm was negative as the Israeli aggression and the unjust siege along with closing all Gaza crossing points persisted", he pointed out.
Finally, Haneyya made it sound and clear that there will be no extension for the term of PA chief Mahmoud Abbas beyond the ninth of January next year either with Arab or non-Arab political cover, stressing that Hamas doesn’t fear the ballot boxes nor the will of the Palestinian people provided the election process would be fair and free.
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