Hamas Calls For Direct Meeting With Fatah Movement To Agree On National Strategy

ISTANBUL, May 15 (Bernama-Anadolu) -- The Palestinian group Hamas called Thursday on the Fatah movement led by President Mahmoud Abbas to hold a “direct meeting” once Fatah’s eighth general congress concludes to agree on a “national strategy.”

Fatah's congress opened Thursday in the West Bank city of Ramallah and is scheduled to continue for three days, Anadolu Ajansi reported.

Senior Hamas member Husam Badran said the Fatah congress represented “an opportunity to achieve a shift in Palestinian internal national relations.”

He added the event could help increase “readiness and preparedness to confront plans of the criminal Zionist enemy, which seeks to eliminate the Palestinian cause by exploiting international and regional circumstances.”

Badran called on Fatah to engage in a “direct meeting” after the congress “to agree on a Palestinian national strategy on all issues concerning our people during this sensitive phase.”

“It is high time to rise above divisions and the consequences of the past, and look to the present and future on the basis of national partnership and collective responsibility,” he said.

The Palestinian political arena has remained divided since 2007, with Hamas controlling the Gaza Strip while the West Bank is administered by a government formed by Fatah under Abbas.

Over the years, several reconciliation meetings have been held between the two Palestinian factions to end the division and restore national unity, most recently in China in 2024, but without producing significant practical steps.

-- BERNAMA-ANADOLU