Fatah delegation arrives to Gaza on Saturday to discuss reconciliation

CAIRO – 25 August 2018: A Fatah delegation will visit Cairo on Saturday to take part in talks with Gaza's factions including Hamas on the truce in Gaza and the Palestinian reconciliation, according to the official Palestinian channel.

The delegation is scheduled to include Azzam al-Ahmad, the Palestinian Authority official in charge of the reconciliation talks, and two senior Palestinian officials considered close to Abbas and Civilian Affairs Minister Hussein al-Sheikh. The Intelligence chief Majid Faraj will not be accompanied by the delegation due to suffering health problems.

An Egyptian security delegation headed to Israel in a short visit on Wednesday, to discuss the cease-fire deal between Palestinian factions and Israel.

The visit that lasted for a few hours is a resumption of Egypt’s efforts to deescalate the tension in the Gaza Strip and accomplish the reconciliation between the Palestinian factions.

A state of calmness prevailed in the Gaza Strip, after the Egypt-brokered truce was reached between Palestinians and Israelis to put an end to the military escalation in the strip. However, two Palestinians including a medic were killed by Israeli fire on the Gaza border on Aug. 11.

It was the third major escalation since July and came despite attempts by UN officials and Egypt to secure a long-term truce between Israel and Hamas, the Islamist movement that runs the Gaza Strip.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged all the regional powers to support the Egyptian efforts in coordination with the United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, Nickolay Mladenov, to curb any military escalation between the Israeli army and the Palestinian factions in Gaza. He welcomed on Wednesday the Israeli decision to reopen Kerem Shalom commercial crossing and the fishing zone off the coast of Gaza,

Guterres said that the Israeli authorities agreed to the calls of the International arena to avoid the harms of closing a civil crossing, adding that citizens in Gaza are set to face huge living difficulties if the crossing closes.

Egyptian diplomacy along with the UN managed to establish a ceasefire between Israeli and Palestinian factions in Gaza, following an Israeli military aggression against Gaza last week.

As for the inter-Palestine reconciliation, a source told Egypt Today on the condition of anonymity, that Fatah's Executive Committee member Azzam al-Ahmad is currently in Cairo, in order to conduct a number of positive talks with Egyptian officials regarding the mechanisms of the reconciliation process.

In October 2017, the rival Palestinian factions Hamas and Fatah signed a preliminary reconciliation deal in Cairo in the presence of Egyptian intelligence officials, in the latest in a series of attempts to end a decade-long Palestinian territorial.