Deposed Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haneya on Monday called on Arab nations to cut their ties with Israel and implement earlier resolutions of lifting an Israeli closure on the Hamas-controlled Palestinian Gaza Strip.

In a televised speech on the eve of the Arab summit, which opened in Doha on Monday morning, Haneya said "there is no time for waiting more. We demand you to implement the decisions taken in former summit meetings by lifting the Gaza siege and opening the crossings."

Haneya also urged the Arab leaders "to work on presenting the Zionist war criminals to justice for the crimes they committed in Gaza."

Israel sealed off the Gaza Strip in 2007 after Hamas seized the territory by force from its rival Fatah movement.

"It is time for this siege to be lifted after it claimed the lives of hundreds of patients and paralyzed all forms of life," Haneya said.

Meanwhile, Haneya said that reconciliation talks between his movement and President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah movement "were still in their beginning."

The Egyptian-hosted talks, which will resume following the end of the Doha summit, are the first initiative that pushed Hamas and Fatah into dialogue since the Islamic movement routed pro-Abbas forces from the Gaza Strip in 2007.

"There are still some differences but we can reach an agreementon them away from any foreign intervention," Haneya said.

During the first round of talks, the factions agreed on forming a unity government and holding elections by January 2010, but they failed to agree on the government's platform and the electoral system.

(Xinhua News Agency March 31, 2009)