By DPA
New York : Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad insists that the Gaza Strip remains an integral part of any future Palestinian state despite being under the control of the militant group Hamas.
Fayyad Monday rejected an Israeli declaration last week that Gaza was an “enemy entity” and dismissed any thought of initially creating a Palestinian state in the West Bank alone as a first phase.
“Gaza has been and always will be an integral part of our homeland,” Fayyad said after a meeting on humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian Authority at the United Nations in New York. “Gaza is not an entity.”
Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni also denied that Israel’s aims were focussed exclusively on a state in the West Bank, but defended last week’s decision over Gaza as a “description of reality”.
Livni said that the “idea of a Palestinian state refers to” both Gaza and the West Bank, “but the situation on the ground is different”.
Israel was still committed to providing humanitarian assistance to Gaza, but Livni said the decision was a matter of security in the face of rocket attacks out of the region.
At the same time, Israel was “working to make the situation of the Palestinian Authority easier”, she said.
Fayyad said that achieving stability and security in the Palestinian territories was “as much a Palestinian need as an Israeli need” and again called on Hamas to relinquish its authority over Gaza.
Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip earlier this year, forcing out the more moderate Fatah party of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Fayyad was named by Abbas as the head of a technocratic government shortly after the takeover.
The UN meeting over aid to the Palestinian Authority, attended by both Livni and Fayyad, came one day after a meeting of the Middle East Quartet in New York, which voiced optimism for the ongoing Middle East peace process.
US President George W. Bush is convening a meeting in November in Washington, with Arab governments and parties involved in the Middle East conflict invited to attend. Syria will also be included in the talks.