Fatah to Hamas: Want to reconcile? Sign deal

A senior member of the Fatah movement on Sunday dismissed Hamas politburo chief Khaled Meshal's remarks that the warring Palestinian factions were close to deal for reconciliation.

"If Meshal means what he says, he should go to Egypt and announce his party's commitment to Palestinian reconciliation," Azzam al-Ahmed was quoted as saying in the West Bank town of Ramallah by the Palestinian Wafa news agency.

"We urge Hamas to sign it so that we begin implementing the agreement," he added.

Hamas seized the Gaza Strip after a bloody coup in 2007, knocking government control out of the hands of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah faction. Reconciliation efforts have been ongoing with little result.

At a meeting with officials in Saudi Arabia, Meshal said Hamas wants Riyadh to play a special role alongside Egypt and other Arab countries to unify the Palestinian position and also to prompt Arabs to confront the Israeli government.

"We achieved great strides towards achieving reconciliation," Meshal told reporters at the foreign ministry during a visit to the Saudi capital. "We are in the final stages now."

This was the first known meeting between Saudi and Hamas officials since Saudi Arabia brokered the Mecca Agreement in 2007 between Hamas and Fatah.

An Egyptian proposal to promote reconciliation between Hamas and Abbas's Fatah group has called for presidential and legislative elections to be held in the West Bank and Gaza Strip next June.

Meshal said Hamas still had some points to resolve in the Egyptian proposal.

Azzam al-Ahmad, a senior Fatah official, said Fatah has already endorsed the Egyptian proposal and it was up to Hamas to either follow suit or reject it.

"We urge Hamas to sign it so that we begin implementing the agreement," al-Ahmad told Reuters.

Meshal's meeting with Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal was designed to help reconciliation of the feud, Saudi officials said. The talks took place before a visit by the U.S. presidential envoy for the Middle East, George Mitchell, in the coming days and followed a state visit by Abbas.

Saudi officials say Iranian support for Hamas has widened the rift with Fatah and hampers a resumption of peace talks.

"This meeting should dissipate doubts about roles being played in our region," Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal said. "We must clarify the picture especially to Palestinian officials and also understand from them what are their orientations and goals".

A Western diplomat said Hamas also hopes Riyadh will convince Cairo to abandoning a plan to build an underground barrier along its border with the Gaza Strip.

Hamas calls the project a "wall of death" that could seal an Israeli-led blockade by smothering smuggler tunnels from the Egyptian Sinai.

"The wall could turn the table on Hamas," the diplomat said.

Hamas does not recognize Israel's right to exist and opposes the Fatah strategy pursued by Abbas of seeking to negotiate a permanent peace deal.

Hamas is not part of the Palestine Liberation Organization, which was founded in 1964 and is recognized internationally as the representative body of the Palestinians.

Hamas inmates say torture ends in West Bank jails

Palestinian security forces in the West Bank have stopped torturing Hamas prisoners, ending two years of systematic abuse, Hamas inmates told The Associated Press in jailhouse interviews.

The change in practice, said to have taken effect in October, was confirmed by a West Bank Hamas leader, human rights activists and the Palestinian prime minister. It defuses a potential problem for Washington since the U.S. has been closely involved in training Palestinian troops under the control of Western-backed Abbas.

Hamas legislators and human rights researchers said they still get sporadic reports of prisoners being slapped or forced to stand for several hours during interrogation. And security forces continue to keep a close watch on Hamas activities, often arresting activists and holding them for lengthy periods without charge.

However, they said the worst abuses - prisoners beaten with clubs and cables, suspended from the ceiling while tied up in painful positions and forced to stand for days - have ended.

Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad confirmed a dramatic change for the better in West Bank prisons and said 43 officers have been jailed, fired or demoted for abusing prisoners.

In an interview, he denied torture was ever official policy, but acknowledged past excesses that he said stemmed from a flawed culture of revenge.

President Abbas' security forces, dominated by supporters of his Fatah movement, have been clamping down on Hamas in the West Bank since June 2007, when the Islamic militants wrested control of the Gaza Strip from the Palestinian leader.

Since then, some 4,000 Hamas followers were arrested in the West Bank, and 500 are currently in detention, according to Hamas. Just two weeks ago, dozens of Hamas supporters were detained during the group's anniversary celebrations. In Gaza, Hamas has rounded up hundreds of Fatah supporters, who also have complained of severe mistreatment.

	Hamas leader Khaled Meshal.
	Photo by: (Reuters)