Hamas held talks with rival factions on Sunday to try to persuade them to join a Palestinian government which the Islamic militant group said was facing a ‘state of crisis’ caused by international pressure against it.
Hamas, which won January's parliamentary election and formed a government last month that included a scattering of independents, said it held discussions with 12 rival factions and could decide to widen its current cabinet of 24 ministers.
‘We are not against expanding the government and we are not against forming a national coalition,’ Ghazi Hamad, a spokesman for the Hamas-led administration, said after Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh met the factions.
‘There is a state of crisis and a state of siege. There is no place for any party to sit in the audience,’ Hamad told reporters, indicating that Hamas wanted to get as many parties as possible on its side to try to build greater unity.
However, the long-dominant Fatah movement did not take part in Sunday's talks and has previously rejected joining Hamas in government.
Hamas tried after the elections to gain the support of rival groups, including Fatah and other national and Islamic movements, but failed. It was not clear how it would be more successful at winning the factions over this time around.
Since taking office on March 29, the Hamas-led authority has been under intense financial and diplomatic pressure from Israel, the United States and the European Union.
The West has cut off hundreds of millions of dollars of funding, calling on Hamas to recognize Israel, renounce violence and abide by existing interim peace deals.
The pressure on the group, which is dedicated to Israel's destruction, has pushed the Palestinian administration toward collapse, although Hamas leaders have repeatedly dismissed concerns that the government could cave in.
There is also growing internal unrest as the authority, already around $1.3 billion in debt and unable to secure foreign financial support, battles to find the money to pay more than 140,000 workers. March salaries have so far gone unpaid.
FATAH OBSTACLE
During Sunday's talks with the factions, which included the militant Islamic Jihad group, Haniyeh reiterated his refusal to recognize Israel, which Hamas contends was created on occupied Arab land.
Hamas has carried out nearly 60 suicide bombings in Israel since a Palestinian uprising erupted in 2000 but it has largely abided by a ceasefire reached last year.
Even if Hamas did manage to bring more groups into government, failure to strike an alliance with Fatah, the movement headed by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, would be a major obstacle to forming a truly unified coalition.
A senior Fatah leader said the group had refused to join Sunday's talks because Haniyeh had not followed the correct procedures in convening the meeting. But he also said Fatah had not ruled out joining a broader government.
‘Fatah did not reject before the principle of sharing a national unity government and the principle is not rejected now,’ Samir al-Mashharawi told Reuters.
‘But more important is that we have clear political differences, two different political agendas. We need to see what the platform of the new coalition government is, what Hamas has invited us to join,’ he said.