For the first time since Hamas staged a coup and took control of Gaza in June 2007, leading figures of both Fatah and Hamas took part in Palestinian consultations yesterday in Cairo. This came on the sidelines of the meetings between the Egyptian Minister Omar Suleiman and the leaders of the Palestinian factions to discuss how to maintain the ceasefire and reach a truce. Today, Suleiman is due to meet the delegation of the Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Speaking at a press conference, the head of Fatah block at the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) Azzam al-Ahmad said Fatah leaders had met with the Hamas delegation in Cairo to quickly start the Palestinian dialogue and facilitate a national entente. Al-Ahmad also said that the Hamas delegation left Cairo for Damascus to show the results of the meeting to Khaled Mashaal, the head of Hamas Political Bureau. He added the delegation would then return with a response. He made it clear that, thanks to Egypt's efforts, the Palestinians had made further steps forward towards closing up their ranks. He also affirmed that, according to the PLO delegation, it was necessary to end the inter-Palestinian split and to form a national unity government. The Secretary General of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Naif Hawatima, called for a national unity government like the one currently in Lebanon. Meanwhile, following the meeting of the permanent delegates at the Arab League, the League Secretary General Amr Moussa said that the donations would not be sent to Gaza in the shape of bags of money, as the Arab Fund for Development, the Islamic Bank in Jeddah and the Arab authority for reconstruction would take charge of rebuilding the structures destroyed by Israel, mainly hospitals and schools. "We won't intervene in small disputes on whether the funds should go to Hamas or the Palestinian Authority. Instead, we will deal with the reality" he said. Meanwhile, the Council of the Arab League has decided to set up a high authority to reconstruct Gaza and called for an international investigation into Israel's war crimes in the Gaza Strip. In Brussels, Egypt's Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit said on the sidelines of a joint conference with his EU counterparts that it had been proven that Egypt was right when it said that Iran was behind many of the recent events. In particular, Aboul Gheit was referring to Tehran pushing Hamas to assume an intransigent stance on the truce initiatives for Gaza. On the ground, Hamas denied Israeli reports which said that one of its leaders, Mahmoud al-Zahar, had been wounded during the land attack. Although the war is over, the Gaza Strip is still suffering from the Israeli blockade, closed border crossings, a grave humanitarian crisis and a shortage of food and supplies. Dozens of families are still displaced after their houses have been bombed. They are waiting for Hamas' deposed government to keep its promises and help them. 60-year-old Mohamed Abdrabbu had his farm turned into a fortress by Hamas during the war and is now living in a single room, which is all that is left of a three-storey house. "Four days ago they promised to help us, but we've had nothing so far. Does it look like a victory as Hamas said?" he affirmed. The deposed government had declared that it would pay €1,000 to every family who had had one member killed and 4,000 to those who had had their houses destroyed during the war.
