Hamas leader meets Egyptian security delegation in Gaza

By Nour Abu Aisha

GAZA CITY, Palestine

Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh on Thursday met with an Egyptian security delegation in the blockaded Gaza Strip.

The Egyptian delegation -- which includes Ayman Badie, Egypt’s deputy intelligence chief -- arrived in Gaza earlier Thursday through Israel's Erez border crossing.

According to Palestinian media reports, the visit comes within the framework of ongoing Hamas-Egypt talks about inter-Palestinian reconciliation and a proposed truce between Israel and Gaza-based resistance groups.

On Wednesday, Israeli warplanes carried out a series of airstrikes across the Gaza Strip in ostensible response to rockets fired into southern Israel from the blockaded Palestinian enclave.

The airstrikes left at least one Palestinian dead, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.

The Israeli army, for its part, said it had struck 20 targets throughout Gaza, going on to hold Hamas -- which has governed the strip since 2007 -- responsible for the escalation.

On Wednesday, a separate Egyptian delegation departed Gaza via the Erez crossing after arriving in the enclave on Tuesday for talks with Hamas officials.

Since March, more than 200 Palestinians have been martyred by Israeli army gunfire -- and thousands more injured -- while taking part in ongoing rallies along the Gaza-Israel buffer zone.

Demonstrators demand an end to Israel’s 12-year blockade of Gaza -- which has gutted the strip’s economy -- and the right to return to their homes in historical Palestine from which they were driven in 1948.