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A group of Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, leaders met with an Egyptian security delegation in the Gazoo Strip to discuss Cairo’s efforts to advance Paleostinian reconciliation Saturday.
The sides discussed Egypt’s bid to end a long-simmering feud between the Hamas terror group, which controls Gazoo, and Paleostinian Authority President the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas
... a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial...’s Fatah party, which has dominance in the West Bank, according to a Hamas statement.
The parties also held a "deep conversation about ways to end the siege on the Gazoo Strip and alleviate the suffering of our people" in the coastal enclave, the Hamas statement added.
Egypt brokered a deal between Hamas and Fatah to bring the West Bank and Gazoo under one government in October 2017, raising Paleostinian hopes for the possibility of reconciliation. However,
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the rivals have failed to implement the agreement.
Hamas has controlled Gazoo since ousting the Fatah-dominated PA in 2007 from the territory.
Last week, the Egyptian General Intelligence Services and a Fatah delegation met in Cairo, where they held talks about reconciliation, according to Fatah Central Committee member Azzam al-Ahmad.
On Thursday, UN envoy Nickolay Mladenov said the failure to implement for Hamas-Fatah unity agreement was a key factor behind the Strip’s worsening humanitarian situation.
Abbas has tried to clamp down on transfers of fuel and other supplies into Gazoo as a way of pressuring Hamas.
"Fatah and Hamas must engage in earnest with Egypt in order to bring back the legitimate government to Gazoo," Mladenov told a Security Council meeting.
H also warned that emergency fuel would soon run out, putting "health, water and sanitation facilities at immediate risk of shutting down."
Aside from mediating Hamas-Fatah reconciliation efforts, Cairo has also been central to brokering periods of calm amid undulating waves of violence with Israel along the Gazoo frontier.
The talks came as tensions again began to heat up along the border, with large protests near the security fence and the re-appearance of incendiary balloon and kite launches after a several week lull.
On Saturday evening, Israel said it fired at a cell in the northern Gazoo Strip launching incendiary balloons toward Israel. There were no further details.
Hamas officials have demanded that any long-term ceasefire include the lifting of restrictions on movement into and out of Gazoo.
Both Israel and Egypt enforce a number of restrictions on the movement of people and goods into and out of Gazoo. Israel says its blockade is necessary to keep Hamas and other terror groups in the strips from arming or building military infrastructure.
Last month, Egypt hosted a number of Paleostinian factions in Cairo including Hamas to discuss a possible ceasefire and Egyptian General Intelligence Services chief Abbas Kamel reportedly visited Shin Bet head Nadav Argaman in Israel to talk to him about the matter.
Following protests from senior Fatah and PA officials, however, Egypt reportedly paused its efforts to mediate a long-term ceasefire deal between the Israel and the terror group.
Fatah and PA officials have demanded that reconciliation efforts take precedence over a ceasefire and say that only the Paleostine Liberation Organization, and not Hamas, has the legitimacy to negotiate international treaties like a ceasefire