Reconciliation committee to meet in Gaza

The national reconciliation committee will hold its second meeting in Gaza City on Wednesday in an attempt to diffuse recent tensions between Fatah and Hamas. Committee member Saleh Nasser told Ma'an that the committee would also discuss key reconciliation issues. “We will work with both movements to end the negative impact between Fatah and Hamas on the Beit Hanoun crossing. We are going to the meeting today hoping to end it with a positive spirit which prevailed in the first meeting,” Nasser said. Four Fatah officials tried to enter the Gaza Strip on Friday for reconciliation talks, but said they were refused entry by Hamas border guards and left after waiting for 45 minutes. Hamas said the delegation refused to wait more than 10 minutes for border guards to call their supervisors to arrange the group's entry. On Sunday the parties accused each other of using the row as a pretext to back out of the May 2011 deal to end fighting between the divided governments. Speaking about the reconciliation committee's role, Nasser said the Arab League would donate $34 million to the group in order to compensate people who have been adversely affected as a result of the political divide between the two main Palestinian factions. The cross-party committee met in the Gaza Strip for the first time last week, after the meeting was postponed days earlier. The "public freedoms committee" is tasked with hammering out a number of tenets of the unity deal signed in May, including political prisoners, passports, closure of institutions, travel bans and freedom of political expression, committee member Hani Abu Amra had told Ma'an. Fatah leader and President Mahmoud Abbas signed a landmark reconciliation agreement with Hamas chief Khalid Mashaal in Cairo in May, to end years of hostility. In 2007, fighting between the parties reached near civil war and led to the division of the West Bank and Gaza under separate governments. The parties agreed in May to form a unity government, but the administration has yet to be appointed.