week-long visit
Online
BEIRUT
Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh was in Beirut for a week-long visit that will see him meet with Palestinian factions over growing cooperation between their enemy Israel and Arab states.
Haniyeh s visit, his first to Lebanon in 27 years, comes after an August 13 announcement that the Jewish state and the United Arab Emirates have agreed to normalise ties.
On Thursday, he will meet representatives of other Palestinian factions in rare talks on how to respond to such accords and to a Middle East peace plan announced by Washington this year, said the Islamist movement s representative in Lebanon, Ali Baraka.
The meeting at the Palestinian embassy in Beirut will coincide with talks in Ramallah between Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas and representatives of Palestinian factions there.
Thursday s joint discussions in Ramallah and Beirut aim to develop “a unified Palestinian strategy to confront normalisation schemes… and to reject plans to annex the West Bank as well as (Trump s) deal of the century ,” Baraka told media.
