GAZA, 26 January 2005 — For the first time since it was founded in 1987, Palestinian group Hamas is ready to join the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), leaders of the organization said yesterday.
The movement, however, said it would not take part in a Palestinian government. It also reiterated that it was willing to declare a cease-fire with Israel, if the Jewish state guaranteed to end its military operations in Palestinian cities and its pursuit of militants, and released Palestinian prisoners.
“This is a moment of test,” Khaled Mashaal, the head of Hamas’ political bureau in Damascus, said in a telephone call to Deutsche Presse-Agentur from an unknown place. “When the Palestinian factions agree with Abu Mazen (on) a conditional pacification, this throws the ball into the American and Israeli court,” he said.
He earlier said in an interview with the Al-Hayat newspaper, that the possibility of Hamas joining the PLO had been “one of the main topics of discussion” with new Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
Sheikh Hassan Yousuf, a Hamas leader based in the West Bank, also said yesterday that Hamas was willing to join the PLO through elections.
Abbas returned to Ramallah Monday night, ending six days of talks with Hamas and other militant leaders based in Gaza, aimed at persuading them to declare a halt to their attacks against Israel.
Meanwhile, President Abbas is to embark this week on the first foreign trip by a Palestinian leader for over three years, heading to Egypt, Jordan, Turkey and Russia, in a bid to build up international pressure on Israel.
Israeli soldiers meanwhile found the body of a Palestinian man in the Gaza Strip yesterday morning, south of the Karni crossing with Israel, an army spokeswoman said.
Israeli troops had shot the man Monday evening outside the fence surrounding the settlement block of Gush Katif.
It was the first death in the Gaza Strip since a Palestinian security force deployed in the northern part of the Strip on Friday.
