By KUNA
Gaza : The Palestinian Islamic organization, Hamas, on Thursday slammed a meeting due to be held between Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert later in the day.
Hamas said in a statement that it could not “fathom Abbas’ holding of meetings with Olmert in shadow of continuing attacks and (Israel’s refrain) from recognizing legitimate and political and national rights of our people.” The Islamic organization, which controls Gaza, condemned what it termed “desperate official Palestinian attempts to appease the occupation and its leaders who have affirmed in action and not words that they are keen on pursuing the offensives on our people.
“These attacks have been in the form of intensifying settlement activities, reviving schemes to judaize Jerusalem, invading cities and towns and camps on daily basis, detention of our citizens, tightening the siege, closing the gateways and assassinating leaders and strugglers of our people in Gaza Strip.” The organization, that challenges authority of Abbas, said such meetings “are valueless and weightless and would not serve the national cause of our people and would undermine its higher interests.” It called on Abbas to cease holding such talks with “the Zionist prime minister that serve as a cover to his aggression on our people.”