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Hamas says Switzerland intends to help settle division among Palestinians

Xinhua, May 11, 2016 Adjust font size:

Switzerland informed Hamas that it intends to hold a conference to discuss the internal Palestinian reconciliation, a senior Hamas official in Gaza said on Wednesday.

Ismail Haneya, Hamas deputy chief, told reporters at Gaza Islamic University that the Swiss Ambassador to the Palestinian National Authority Paul Garnier "informed me on Tuesday about his country's planning for the conference."

He said ending the current division, achieving reconciliation and unity, as well as forming a unified leadership and having a joint political program that liberates Palestinian are his group's main goals.

One of the most sticky issues to end the current internal Palestinian feud is the issue of Hamas employees in Gaza. There are roughly 44,000 of them.

Hamas stopped paying its employees salaries until June 2014 when a consensus unity government was formed following an agreement reached at Haneya's home in Gaza between his movement and the Fatah Party. It then demanded the consensus government to pay the bills, but the government in Ramallah declined. Enditem