Palestine Today 02 06 2012

Abbas is announced as the prime choice to be the Prime Minister of the Interim Government, and the last member of the Hamas party leaves Syria, these stories and more, coming up, so stay tuned.

Ten more Palestinian detainees at the Ofer Israeli prison, decided to join the open-ended hunger strike of Sheikh Khader Adnan, who has been on hunger strike for 50 days, and his health condition has sharply deteriorated.

Amjad An-Najjar, head of the Palestinian Prisoner Society (PPS), in the southern West Bank city of Hebron, stated that six Islamic Jihad detainees, and four members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), declared they are joining the strike. An-Najjar stated that Adnan, 33, is ongoing with his strike despite his bad health condition, and held Israel responsible for his life.

The last member of the leadership of the Hamas party left Syria on Sunday, in an attempt to separate the party from the Syrian government’s crackdown on protesters. Numerous members of the party had been based in Syria for years after having been exiled by Israeli authorities.

Imad al-Alami returned to the Gaza Strip on Sunday to a cheering crowd, after having been exiled from Gaza to South Lebanon in 1991. He arrived in Syria three years ago, where he joined Hamas politburo leader Khaled Meshaal.

Previously, the Hamas party had not taken a strong stand on the Syrian government’s crackdown on protesters, and was criticized by the international community for tacitly supporting the Syrian regime.

In the political news, after a recent meeting in Qatar, mediated by Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifa, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas Chief Khaled Mashaal announced that Abbas should serve as the Prime Minister of the Interim-Government, until elections can take place later this year.

According to a Hamas website, a source close to the talks is quoted as saying that Abbas and Mashaal agreed ‘in principle’ on Sunday that Abbas would head the interim government.

Hamas previously stated unequivocally that the current Palestinian Authority Prime Minister, Salam Fayyad, was unacceptable as the interim leader. Whilst many the international community, including Israel, the United States and the European Union list Hamas as a terrorist organization, having Abbas as the Prime Minister will certainly improve its credibility, and serve to counter-balance the effect of having members of Hamas in government.

That’s all for today from the IMEMC News, this was the Monday February 6th daily roundup of news from the Occupied Palestinian Territories. We hope you will join us again tomorrow. This has been brought to you by Husam Qassis and me, William Gibson.