Hamas agrees to join PA for national unity talks after arrested official is released
by Karen Faulkner, Worthy News Correspondent
(Worthy News) – Hamas agreed to join talks on forming a new unity government with the leaders of other main Palestinian factions after the Palestinian Authority on Sunday released a senior Hamas official who had been arrested on charges of slandering the PA and stirring up sectarian strife, the Jerusalem Post reports.
Hamas official Sheikh Mustafa Abu Arra, a 63-year-old resident of the town of Tubas in the Jordan Valley, was arrested and charged by the PA on Thursday, JPost reports. Abu Arra was rushed to hospital suffering with a heart problem soon after his arrest but was returned to a PA police station in the West Bank city of Tulkarem on Saturday.
The Sheikh’s arrest angered Hamas and other groups, including Palestinian Islamic Jihad, who then threatened to boycott the planned national unity meeting of Palestinian leaders in Cairo, Egypt on July 30, JPost reports.
The planned national unity talks are at the invitation of PA President Mahmoud Abbas, and represent a response to Israel’s major military operation in the Jenin Refugee camp earlier this month, JPost said.
“Palestinian officials said Abbas, who himself might participate in the Cairo discussions, is hoping to convince Hamas and other Palestinian groups to join a new unity government that would end the split between the West Bank and Gaza Strip,” JPost said in its report.
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