Fathi Al-Qar’awi, a member of Hamas’ Change and Reform parliamentary bloc, said that the PA security forces summoned several ex-prisoners and their families for questioning. The official Hamas website quoted Al-Qar’awi as saying that the freed prisoners refused the summons to appear for questioning.
The Hamas lawmaker urged the PA to stop harassing the released prisoners and their families, and to “take advantage of the prisoner swap deal to achieve Palestinian national unity.”
On Tuesday, Israel freed 477 prisoners according to an Egyptian-brokered deal with Hamas. Under the deal, Israel retrieved its soldier, Gilad Shalit, who had been held hostage in Gaza for five years.
According to the deal, about 290 prisoners went to the Gaza Strip, including 163 deported from their homes in the West Bank. Some 110 prisoners returned to their homes in the West Bank. This phase will be followed by the release of 550 Palestinians two months later.
The development comes as the rival Fatah and Hamas movement are trying to implement the Egyptian-brokered national reconciliation deal that aims to put an end to four years of internal split.
Azzam Al-Ahmed, a member of Fatah Central Committee and head of its team to Cairo reconciliation talks with Hamas, said that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will meet in early November with the exiled Hamas leader Khaled Mish’al to discuss the implementation of the national reconciliation deal that the two movements signed last May.
Al-Ahmad added that the two leaders will discuss the formation of national unity government that will control the West Bank and Gaza Strip and other obstacles blocking implementation of the deal.
The Fatah official said he had recently met Mish’al, calling the meeting “positive.”
Representatives of Hamas and Fatah movements held several meetings abroad but failed to resolve the obstacles blocking the implementation of the deal, particularly the obstacle of the new prime minister.
Abbas wants to retain caretaker Prime Minister Salam Fayyad as the head of the technocratic government. The interim government would rule the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip and the Fatah-ruled West Bank.
Hamas rejected his nomination since it considers Fayyad part of the Palestinian split. Al-Ahmad said on July that the “nomination of Fayyad to head the interim unity government blocks the implementation of the unity deal.”
Abbas fears that failure to appoint Fayyad would prompt the US and EU to suspend financial aid to the Palestinians. He also fears that Israel suspends the transfer of tax revenues to the PA.
