Gaza City: Israel expelled a Palestinian from the West Bank to the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip on Thursday after detaining him for almost a month, officials and local media sources reported.
Baker Al-Hafi, who was arrested in the West Bank city of Tulkarem from his home a month ago was released but expelled to the Gaza Strip thereafter, the Palestinian Prisoner Club PPC said in a statement. Al-Hafi originally from Gaza but has been living in the West Bank for more than 10 years. He is married to a woman from the West Bank.
According to the statement, Israel also wants to deport nine other detainees from the West Bank to Jordan. The nine prisoners are Palestinians who came from Jordan and some of them are married while others are university students. They were detained more than three years ago. Israel had recently employed a policy of extraditing and expelling Palestinians from certain areas away from their places of residence and employment. The statement added that the current measures aims to force Palestinians out of their property and hometowns.
Meanwhile, Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh on Thursday welcomed Fatah Central Committee member Nabil Shaath at his home in Al-Shati refugee camp, west of Gaza City.
Shaath told reporters before the meeting with Haniyeh that the visit aimed to ease the atmosphere between the two movements “in order to achieve a Palestinian national reconciliation to end the internal division.”
The visit came after Shaath spent the day touring Al-Azhar university, and civil service institutions in Gaza city. He also visited the home of the late Yasser Arafat and toured its gardens, paying a social visit to Arafat’s sister Khadija.
