Hamdan: Poisonous attempts to spoil Hamas-Egypt relationship won't succeed

[ 11/02/2008 - 10:25 AM ]




BEIRUT, (PIC)-- Senior Hamas political leader and the Movement's representative in Lebanon Osama Hamdan has strongly denied Sunday the "poisonous" rumors suggesting that Egypt has cut off its relationship with Hamas and banned the Movement's leaders from entering its territories.

Hamdan also asserted that although there were points of differences between Hamas and Egypt views over certain issues relating to the Palestinian case; yet, he added, such differences won't affect the "strategic relationship between Hamas and Egypt".

In this regard, Hamdan accused certain quarters in Fatah faction close to PA chief Mahmoud Abbas of attempting to "poison" the Hamas-Egypt relationship by spreading false news that Cairo banned Hamas leaders from entering Egypt.

"The news about the ban decision are absolutely untrue as we weren’t informed by Egypt of any decision of this kind, and we believe that the reports were fabricated by the PA team in Ramallah city with the aim to spoil Hamas's relationship with Egypt", Hamdan asserted.

He also explained that such attempts were meant to "instigate Egypt against Hamas after the sweeping popular support the Movement gained in the Egyptian street after it confronted the Israeli economic siege on Gaza with exemplary steadfastness".

"We are confident that such attempts will not succeed", Hamdan pointed out.

Refuting the rumors, Hamdan underlined that Hamas's contacts with the Egyptian authorities and officials were going on, asserting, "We are not enemies of Egypt as we both are affected by the Israeli occupation, and I don’t think there will be any crisis in our relationship because we will not allow any party to mar that brotherly relationship or transform our battle against the Israeli occupation into a battle with Egypt".

Furthermore, Hamdan highlighted that the biggest part of the latest crisis that happened at the borders between Gaza Strip and Egypt was generated by a number of Egyptian media outlets in addition to those affiliated with Fatah faction.

A number of Egyptian writers and journalists known of their support for normalization with Israel have unleashed an "oppressive" media campaign against Hamas Movement and the Palestinian people after hundreds of thousands of Gaza inhabitants broke the Israeli siege on them, and crossed into Egypt to buy food and medicine for their families after Israel denied them such needs.