Fatah called on Musa Abu Marzuq, top Hamas political bureau leader living in Cairo, to get Hamas to stop its insidious broadcasts on the Egyptian people and army.
Fatah said in a statement on Tuesday that Hamas’ satellite channels, especially Al-Quds and Al-Aqsa “incite on [a] daily basis and around the clock against the Egyptian people and their national army.”
Fatah said this “incitement is a blatant interference in Egyptian affairs and a bias towards one of the internal players in Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood.”
Hamas leader Mushir Al-Masry denied the accusations, and said, “Fatah is lying.” He added that Hamas’ stance has been to keep out of the affairs of all Arab countries, especially Egypt. “Egypt’s national security is Palestine’s,” he stated.
Al-Masry said that Fatah is lodging accusations like this one in an attempt to cover up their abandonment of the Palestinian cause through their engagement in peace talks.
In defense of Abu Marzuq, Al-Masry said, “he is hosted by the Egyptian leadership and is in contact with Egyptian security officials.”
Earlier this week, Fatah spokesperson, Ahmed Assaf, told state-run MENA that Hamas continues to be hostile against Egyptians by supporting the Muslim Brotherhood.
Fatah and Hamas have been hurling accusations at each other for weeks. Since the ouster of former Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi on 3 July, claims have surfaced that Hamas is involved in Egypt’s internal strife. Hamas has repeatedly claimed that Fatah officials are involved in a campaign to distort Hamas’ image in Egyptian media.
In response, Fatah’s bureau in Egypt said that Hamas does not know who to accuse for its mistakes anymore and is holding others responsible for them. Fatah denounced the accusations as “trifle.”
Disputes broke out between Hamas and Fatah after the former’s victory in the 2006 Palestinian parliamentary elections. Eventually, Hamas took over Gaza in 2007 and the strip has been under a siege, enforced by Egypt and Israel up to the current period.
