President Mahmoud Abbas has predicted the end of a five-year split between the two big Palestinian factions as his Fatah movement staged its first mass rally in Gaza with the blessing of Hamas Islamists who rule the enclave.
“Soon we will regain our unity,” Mr Abbas, whose authority has been limited to the Israeli-occupied West Bank since the 2007 civil war between the two factions, said yesterday in a TV address to hundreds of thousands of followers marching in Gaza, with yellow Fatah flags instead of the Hamas green.
Hamas, which does not recognise Israel’s right to exist, expelled secular Fatah from Gaza during the war. – (Reuters)