Un Envoy Meets With Hamas Officials
The United Nations’ Middle East envoy Nikolay Mladenov met with Hamas officials during a visit to the Gaza Strip on Monday, Breitbart Jerusalem has learned from sources with inside knowledge of the meeting. The confab breaks with a longstanding cold shoulder policy toward Gaza’s Islamic government.
Sources in Hamas confirmed that Mladenov met with Khalil el-Hayeh and Ziad al-Zaza, both members of Hamas’s political bureau, as well as Ghazi Hamad, who oversees Hamas’s foreign relations committee. The meeting was also confirmed by Middle Eastern diplomats familiar with the matter.
Asked for comment on the report, Farhan Haq, deputy UN spokesman, did not deny the meeting took place. “The office of the UN Special Coordinator, UNSCO, is working with the Palestinian Government and all relevant interlocutors on how to reunite Gaza and the West Bank under the single legitimate Palestinian Authority,” Haq told Breitbart Jerusalem.
“Thousands of Gaza public sector employees need to have their salaries paid and the crossings to Gaza must be returned to the control of the Palestinian Authority. This would be a very important step towards lifting the closures,” he said
According to Hamas sources, Mladenov discussed the possibility of a cease-fire with Israel and the status of the bodies of Israeli soldiers held by Hamas.