Hamas delegation heads to Cairo to meet Egypt officials

GAZA CITY, Palestine

A Hamas delegation led by Yahya Sinwar, the group's leader in Gaza, left the blockaded coastal enclave on Thursday for Egyptian capital Cairo.

“This visit comes at the invitation of Egyptian Intelligence Minister Abbas Kamel,” read a Hamas statement released Thursday morning.

According to the statement, delegation members will meet with Egyptian officials “to discuss Hamas-Egypt relations, means of alleviating the suffering of the Gazan people, and other issues of common concern”.

Hamas, which has governed the Gaza Strip since 2007, did not provide any further details, including the visit’s expected duration.

Nafz Azzam, a leader of Palestinian resistance group Islamic Jihad, told Anadolu Agency earlier that delegation members also planned to discuss a proposed Gaza-Israel truce and prospects for reconciliation between Hamas and rival Palestinian faction Fatah.

Thursday’s visit to Cairo comes amid mounting tension following a spate of Israeli airstrikes on Hamas-affiliated positions in Gaza.

On Wednesday, Israeli warplanes conducted two airstrikes in Gaza in ostensible retaliation for the continued launch of incendiary balloons from the Hamas-run strip.

For the last year, Palestinian activists have been flying burning kites and balloons into Israeli territory as part of ongoing anti-occupation demonstrations along the fraught Gaza-Israel buffer zone.

According to Israeli officials, these improvised aerial weapons have caused a number of fires inside Israeli settlements located near the buffer zone, resulting in some material damage but not causing any deaths or injuries.

Since March of last year, more than 250 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli army gunfire -- and thousands more injured -- while taking part in the ongoing protests near the buffer zone.

Protesters demand the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and villages in historical Palestine, from which they were driven in 1948 to make way for the new state of Israel.

They also demand an end to Israel’s 12-year blockade of Gaza, which has gutted the coastal enclave’s economy and deprived its roughly two million inhabitants of many basic commodities.