Obama urged to listen to Hamas expectations

By Anna Fifield in Rafah, Gaza
Financial Times

Hamas, the Palestinian militant group that controls the Gaza Strip, says it has "high hopes" for the Obama administration and wants to meet George Mitchell, the new US Middle East envoy, when he comes to the region this week.

"We would like him to listen to us and to the Hamas vision, what Hamas expects from this American administration," said Ahmed Yousef, a political adviser to Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas leader in Gaza and prime minister of the Hamas-run Gaza government.

"We expect fairness and objectivity and even-handedness when they handle this conflict," Mr Yousef told the Financial Times at his house in Rafah, near the Gaza border with Egypt.

President Barack Obama has pledged to renew the US commitment to the Middle East peace process, including a separate Palestinian state alongside Israel. Last week he appointed Mr Mitchell, who led the peace negotiations in Northern Ireland that led to the 1998 Good Friday peace agreement, as his envoy to the region.

Mr Mitchell's most pressing task will be to help shore up the fragile ceasefire that brought the 22-day conflict between Israel and Hamas to a standstill eight days ago. He is expected to hold talks this week with Ehud Olmert, the outgoing Israeli prime minister, and Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president and head of Hamas's rival Fatah party.

Hamas officials have begun talks with Egyptian mediators on extending the one-week ceasefire, which theoretically ended yesterday, but Mr Yousef said the Islamist group would not renew the deal unless Israel opened the borders.

"If the suffering does not end then there can be no ceasefire," he said, adding that if the borders remained closed, then Gaza would still be "in a state of siege, under sanctions" which he said would amount to "a declaration of war".

"We need the borders open for good. Israel must not use this as a way to twist the arm of Hamas," he said, adding that if Israel agreed to open the borders, the group could extend the ceasefire for as long as one year.

Israel withdrew all its remaining troops from the Gaza Strip last week. But it remains deeply concerned that Hamas will attempt to rearm if the borders are opened. Dozens of Israelis living in border regions have been killed by Hamas rockets and mortar shells, including 13 during the war.

Analysts suggested that, in spite of the rhetoric, the group could agree to a ceasefire even if the borders remained closed. Although it still enjoys widespread support in Gaza, Hamas is facing criticism because it fought a deadly war - 1,300 Palestinians were killed and 5,500 injured - without achieving its chief aim of forcing the borders open.

The crossings were closed in 2006 after Hamas - which does not recognise Israel's right to exist and is considered a terrorist organisation by Israel, the US and the European Union - won elections and took control of the Gaza government.

This cut off almost all of Gaza's contact with the outside world and led to more than 100 tunnels being dug under the border with Egypt. Those tunnels have been Gaza's lifeline for the past two years and were bombed during the conflict, although they are now being rebuilt.

Much of the narrow strip, home to 1.5m Palestinians, lies in ruins, and Mr Yousef said Hamas's top priority now was reconstruction, which required raw materials to be brought into Gaza through the crossings.

"Most of the damage happened to the ordinary people, not to the Hamas cadre or their militia machine," Mr Yousef said.

But he said Hamas also placed high priority on "engaging" with the world community and hoped that, under the new US administration, they would see a change in US policy. Sphere: Related Content