GAZA – The Islamist group Hamas began handing full control of the Gaza Strip’s border crossings with Israel and Egypt to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Wednesday, witnesses said, under an agreement brokered by Egypt to end a decade of internal schism.
Palestinian Authority employees moved into Erez and Kerem Shalom crossings on the Israeli border and Rafah crossing on the Egyptian border, as their Hamas counterparts packed up equipment and departed on trucks.
The handover follows the conclusion of a reconciliation deal in October between the two Palestinian rival factions.
The two factions agreed to hand over responsibility for the border crossings on November 1. The complete handover of administrative control of the Gaza Strip to a unity government is due to take place by December 1.
The deal brokered by Egypt bridges a bitter gulf between the Western-backed mainstream Fatah party of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas, an Islamist movement designated as a terrorist group by Western countries.
Egypt helped mediate several previous attempts to reconcile the two movements and form a power-sharing unity government in Gaza and the West Bank, where Abbas and the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority are based.
Hamas and Fatah agreed in 2014 to form a national reconciliation government but the deal soon dissipated in mutual recriminations with Hamas continuing to dominate Gaza.
Since the ouster of Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood in 2013, Cairo has seldom opened the Rafah crossing.
In August, for the first time in more than three months, Egypt opened the Rafah crossing to allow some 2,500 Gazans to partake in the annual hajj pilgrimage to Mecca.
The Rafah crossing was last opened in early May, for Gazans to return home, while it was most recently opened for Gazans to leave the Strip in March.
The only other exit for Gazans to leave the southern enclave is through the Israeli-controlled Erez crossing.
Adam Rasgon contributed to this article.
Article source: http://www.jpost.com/Breaking-News/Trump-to-press-China-on-North-Korea-trade-on-Beijing-visit-508239
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