AMMAN, 28 January 2008 — Hours before he died at an Amman hospital, the founding father of the Popular Front for Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), George Habash, expressed concerns over Palestinian disunity and Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip, his aides and friends said yesterday.
“His main obsession even at hospital was how to restore Palestinian unity and establish dialogue between the Hamas and Fatah groups,” member of PFLP’s political bureau and representative in Jordan, Suhail Khouri, told Arab News.
Khouri referred to the disruption of Palestinian ranks as a result of the takeover of the Gaza Strip in June 2007 by the radical Hamas faction after overpowering the forces of President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah movement in the territory.
Khouri said that Habash stood at equal distances from the two feuding factions, but was an ardent supporter of dialogue between them out of his belief that the Palestinian people “will be the sole loser” of this dispute.
Habash was “extremely angered” by US President George W. Bush’s remarks during his recent Middle East trip which implicitly excluded the return of Palestinian refugees to their homes in compliance with the UN General Assembly Resolution 194 of 1948, said Saeed Diab, a close friend of Habash. “Habash was against the ongoing negotiations between the Palestinian Authority and Israel,” he said.
