Tuesday, Dec 02, 2008

Gulf News

Dubai: Hamas denied accusations that it banned Muslim pilgrims from leaving Gaza to Makkah, saying they don't possess the requested travel documents with them, nor does it have a list of their names.

Meanwhile, the ban is creating an equal fury among all concerned parties including Hamas, Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

While the accusation of "politicising" religion was traded among the rival Palestinians groups, some analysts described the dispute as part of the ongoing power struggle between Hamas and Fatah.

"We are for the travel of all pilgrims without exception," Fawzi Barhoum, Hamas spokesperson in Gaza, said. "But only after their travel documents are completed," he told Gulf News from Gaza.

Press reports said Hamas police blocked the only crossing point between Gaza and Egypt on Sunday, and prevented pilgrims from leaving Gaza because they received their visas from their rival - the Palestinian Authority.

Barhoum, however, said the banned pilgrims were not carrying their passports, and they said they were at "Al Areesh" point in Egypt. "We don't have a list of their names. We don't know who has registered for pilgrimage and who has not."

"The Palestinian Authority has robbed the strip's quota for Haj pilgrims and misled Saudi Arabia with false information," Barhoum claimed.

The goal of the Palestinian Authority, by doing so, is to create a dispute between Hamas, the Palestinian people and Saudi Arabia. While Cairo criticised Hamas, Riyadh, in a rare rebuke, denied Hamas accusation that it didn't issue pilgrims who registered with Hamas in Gaza visas to perform Hajj.

The Saudi news agency quoted an unnamed foreign ministry official as saying "Saudi Arabia treats all Palestinians equally and it has increased the number of visas granted to Gaza residents because of their circumstances," a foreign ministry spokesman said.

Saudi visas were given to the PA, the statement said.

Saudi Arabia sets quotas to different regions for the number of pilgrims they can send to Haj each year. Gaza is allowed to dispatch about 3,000.

Abbas's Palestinian Authority and Gaza's Hamas rulers submitted separate lists of Gaza pilgrims to the Saudi authorities for visa approvals, but so far Saudi Arabia has rejected the Hamas list, press reports noted.

Hamas, Barhoum said, still hopes its list of pilgrims will be granted visas from the Saudi Embassy in Cairo. Negotiations are still going on, he said.

Since Hamas seized power in Gaza last year, Israel and Egypt have kept a tight blockade on Gaza and the Rafah crossing between Egypt and Gaza has been closed most of the time.

Meanwhile, the pilgrims expressed their frustrations. "This is not a Hamas delegation or a Fatah delegation," Ashraf Lafi, was quoted by AP as saying. "This is a delegation for God."

Meanwhile, the dispute over the haj pilgrimage is more likely a dispute over legitimacy and power, West-Bank Sociology professor Nader Saeed explained.

"Unfortunately, this development has caused some shock among Palestinians. Hamas plays political games to prove itself externally more than internally," Saeed said. " this might be the fatal blow to Hamas's popularity," he said.

© Gulf News 2008. All rights reserved.

 

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