CAIRO
Cairo would host on Wednesday indirect talks between the Palestinians and the Israelis on a permanent cease-fire in the Gaza Strip, a senior Egyptian official said.
The official, who requested anonymity, told Anadolu Agency that the Egyptian capital would also be the venue for national reconciliation talks between the Palestinian factions Fatah and Hamas on Monday.
A leader of the Palestinian faction Fatah, meanwhile, confirmed this news. Yehia Rabbah, a senior leader of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah movement, said a meeting between Fatah and Hamas would be held in Cairo within two days.
He told AA that indirect Gaza-cease-fire talks between the Palestinians and the Israelis would also resume in Cairo on Wednesday.
Rabbah said Cairo would send invitations to both Israel and the Palestinians to attend to Cairo to resume the Gaza cease-fire talks as well as discuss pending issues.
The Palestinians and the Israelis hammered out a Gaza cease-fire deal on August 26 under Egyptian mediation, following 51 days of all-out Israeli attacks on the coastal Palestinian territory.
Rabbah said the meeting between his movement and Hamas would focus on removing obstacles on the way of the national unity government as well as pending issues between the two Palestinian factions.
He said the dialogue talks should come to an end before the Palestinians and the Israelis resume indirect talks on Gaza's cease-fire on Wednesday.
However, Khaled al-Batsh, a member of the Palestinian delegation to last months' Gaza cease-fire talks in Cairo, said the members of his delegation were ready to return to the Egyptian capital at any time.
Even with this, al-Batsh said the delegation had not been informed of the date for resuming the talks yet.
"We have not been officially informed of the date for resuming the talks," al-Batsh told AA on the phone. "We have learned about the resumption of the talks from media only," he added.
He said indirect talks with the Israelis would focus on the release of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, the need for establishing an airport in Gaza, easing the work of the Palestinian national unity government and allowing the transfer of funds to Gaza.
Earlier in the day, Mohamed Nazzal, a member of the political office of Hamas, said Egypt had officially refused to host Hamas-Fatah dialogue talks.
He was quoted by some pro-Hamas media as saying that an agreement had been reached for the dialogue talks to take place in Gaza after Cairo apologized to host them.
Tensions have mounted recently between Hamas and Fatah, the latter of which is led by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.
The tensions come in spite of a June reconciliation deal that produced a unity government headed by West Bank-based Prime Minister Rami al-Hamdullah.
The unity government has yet to assume political control of the Gaza Strip.
Both factions, meanwhile, continue to accuse each other of attempting to sabotage the reconciliation deal.
The deal ended seven years of division between the two factions, which had led to the establishment of two separate seats of government – Fatah in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza – after the latter routed troops loyal to Abbas in 2007 and assumed control of the entire Gaza Strip.
By Gomaa Moselhi
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