Cairo: Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's steadfast refusal yesterday to have any dealings with Hamas, despite pressure for a compromise solution to resolve the border crisis, has left the radical movement scrambling for some other way to maintain its influence on the frontier.
Abbas was in Cairo at the invitation of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in effort to solve the week-old crisis at the border where Hamas fighters had punched holes in the border in effort to end the long blockade of the Gaza Strip.
Despite pressure from Egypt to work with the organisation in which he is in engaged in a deadly rivalry, Abbas categorically refused unless Hamas recognised the 2005 international border agreement and repudiated the summer coup that brought it to power in Gaza.
"There will be no talks with Hamas unless they comply with the conditions we have put forward to back off their coup, to recognise international legitimacy and to accept new early elections," he said after the meeting. Abbas left Cairo shortly afterward making it clear he had no intention of meeting the Hamas officials who were also in town to talk with the Egyptians.
Hamas condemnation
When electricity and food supplies to the besieged Gaza Strip were cut last earlier this month by Israel, Hamas snatched centre-stage when it dramatically reopened the border with Egypt and sent hundreds of thousands of desperate people surging across the wall to buy food and fuel. Abbas, however, has refused to countenance any kind of official role for Hamas. "Since Hamas cannot adapt to the regional and international reality, it cannot be in charge of the crossing," said Hassan Asfour, a former Palestinian minister, now a political analyst in Cairo.
Back in Gaza, Hamas immediately condemned Abbas's remarks, saying they were an attempt to prevent the current round of talks from reaching a solution to the border crisis.
"The statement by President Abbas today will foil any efforts to restore the Palestinian national unity and we emphasise that the protocol of Rafah terminal has expired and all the Palestinian people are determined that the Palestinians and the Egyptians only have the right to control the Rafah terminal," said Hamas spokesman Taher Nunu.
Illegal entry: Africans shot dead
Egyptian border guards at the boundary with Gaza yesterday fatally shot two Africans, a man and a woman as they tried to illegally cross from Egypt into Hamas-controlled coastal strip, officials here said.
The guards opened fire at a group of eight Africans at the southern part of the border wall at Rafah, a town divided between the boundary on its Egyptian and Gazan part. The Africans were suspected of trying to use the commotion and the border free-for-all created after Hamas last week blew up the border wall, enabling a flood of Palestinians into Egypt.
