DOCTOR Saeb Erekat, head of the PLO Negotiations’ Affairs Department, has said that differences over many issues remain pending between the Palestinian and Israeli sides.
In a news conference he held at the presidential headquarters in Ramallah, Erekat added that the issues relating to settlement dominated the biggest part of the meeting between President Mahmud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Monday.
He clarified that the Palestinian and Israeli sides agreed to continue efforts to realise a final agreement before the end of the current year.
Dr Erekat said: ‘Israel must stop all forms of settlement-building, including natural growth, and remove all the settlement hotbeds because the peace process needs some credibility pumped back into it and settlement-building undermines this credibility.’
Erekat clarified that the president raised the issue of the prisoners during his meeting with Olmert and asked him to release them, as well as the Palestinian leaders, topped by Marwan al-Barghouthi.
He said the Israeli side clarified it will look into this matter.
Dr Erekat pointed out that the president also raised the issue of the exiles and demanded that they all be returned.
He clarified that Israel agreed only to the return of four exiles. He confirmed the National Authority’s insistence on the return of all the detainees and that they be treated in the same way as the activists of the intifada.
Erekat said the Palestinian side presented a list containing 10,000 names of those who do not carry residence identity cards, and we have acquired an approval in principle that they will be granted identity cards.
Erekat called on the Palestinian factions to respond to Egyptian efforts to calm the situation down in the Gaza Strip, pointing out that these efforts target protecting the Palestinian people and national reconciliation.
Erekat continued that the president stands by the Egyptian efforts to realise a calm that works on ending the violence that the sons of the Palestinian people are being subjected to in the Gaza Strip.
Meanwhile, Hamas has said that the statement made by the Zionist deputy prime minister – regarding his readiness for dialogue with Hamas and Hezbollah on the issue of the captured soldiers that they are holding – is ‘a fabrication created for media purposes’.
The movement’s spokesman, Fawzi Barhum, stressed in a press statement – a copy of which was obtained by the Palestinian Information Centre on Sunday, April 6 – that the government of the Zionist occupation has ‘reaped a great failure in dealing with the file of the captured soldier Gilad Shalit and its soldiers captured by the Lebanese resistance.
‘They want to cover up this failure by having a minister issue a statement that is part of a fabrication made for media purposes.’
Barhum considered that the occupation’s talk about ‘dialogue’ regarding the release of the captured soldiers ‘is an attempt to throw the ball once again either into the court of Hamas or that of the Lebanese resistance so as to be able to say that Hamas and Hezbollah are the ones who do not want to release the soldiers they are holding.
‘However, the Egyptian efforts made in the past few months in an attempt to close a deal on exchanging the Palestinian prisoners, have been hindered by the evasiveness and stalling of the Israeli occupation government.
‘This government is the one that does not really want to release the captured soldier Gilad Shalit. He explained that it is only interested in deceiving the public opinion in Israel through such fabrications for media purposes.’
He stressed that there are Egyptian efforts and contacts with European officials with Hamas to bring this issue to an end and to reach a successful framework to achieve a prisoners’ exchange deal by releasing Palestinian prisoners for Shalit.
Barhum added that ‘the deputy of the Israeli prime minister should approach his government instead of opening channels of dialogue with Hamas.
‘He knows that Hamas is interested in releasing Palestinian prisoners and in closing this file.
‘So, he – the Zionist minister – should exert pressure on his government to help the Egyptian efforts succeed by formulating a serious Israeli position to release the captured soldier Gilad Shalit.’
The Hamas spokesman said in a statement: ‘The occupation’s government is clearly embarrassed following the statement made by the father of the captured soldier to the media in which he said the Israeli government was lying to him and is deceiving public opinion and the media.
‘He also accused it of not being interested in releasing his son Gilad Shalit.’
Barhum stressed that ‘it will be impossible to release the captured soldier unless Palestinian prisoners are released simultaneously and unless the exchange of prisoners is executed according to the conditions made by the factions holding Shalit.’
Meanwhile, senior Islamic Jihad Leader, Muhammad Al-Hindi said on Tuesday that Palestinian military groups will not plead for a ceasefire with Israel while it continues to operate in the West Bank in tandem with stipulating that the Palestinian military groups stop firing homemade projectiles at Israeli towns.
He told journalists in Gaza City that Israel’s siege on the Gaza Strip has failed as did Israel’s attacks on the Gaza Strip in March.
He added that Israel will not invade the Strip as they realise that an invasion will not stop Palestinian homemade projectiles being fired at Israeli towns.
The only choice Israel has is to consider the Egyptian suggestions for a ceasefire, he added.
He said that Egypt is facing a very embarrassing situation with the continuation of the crippling siege on the Gaza Strip.
The situation may explode anew, leaving the Egyptians with one of two choices – either to open their borders or to open fire on Gazan citizens at the borders.
‘Continuation of the siege is a stigma of disgrace in the face of the Arab countries,’ he said.
‘Israel will need to face the possibility that projectiles continue to land in its territories even after their incursions in the Gaza Strip because both the Palestinian president and the Arab countries will refuse to take control of the Strip following an Israeli invasion,’ Al-Hindi explained.
With regards to the inter-Palestinian crisis and disagreement, Al-Hindi expects that it will not last long as the Palestinians will sooner or later overcome the crisis.
He highlighted the fact that other Palestinian factions have failed to achieve reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah because those factions are partners in the Palestinian question rather than mediators.