Egypt security delegation meets Jihad; Hamas gives Egypt credit

An Egyptian security delegation, now visiting Gaza City, on Thursday had talks with a delegation of the Palestinian Islamic resistance Jihad movement. The talks took up means of putting the Palestinian house in order, now that Israel's Gaza withdrawal was underway.

Jihad says if a single Israeli soldier were to be seen at Rafah checkpoint, this would mean the Israeli occupation was still in place in the Gaza Strip. Mohammed Al-Hindi, a prominent Jihad leader, said the talks dealt also with escalating Israeli practices against the Palestinians, citing Wednesday's murder of four Palestinians and the injury of several others by an Israeli settler in the West Bank.

Meantime, The Palestinian Islamic resistance movement Hamas on Thursday said that Egypt played a great role to pre-empt inter-Palestinian fighting. Hamas representative to Lebanon, Osama Hemdan, in press statements during a visit to Qatar, explained that Egypt had hosted an inter-Palestinian dialogue in a bid to thrash out any differences among the Palestinian factions.

He lauded Egypt's stance rejecting to play any role that would benefit the "Zionist entity" at the expense of the Palestinian people. He explained that Egypt had refused to deploy joint forces with Israel inside the Gaza Strip or at its borders. Egypt only allowed deployment of forces at Salaheddin axis between Gaza and Sinai.