In a symbolic step toward ending a decade-long rift with Hamas, the Palestinian prime minister visited the Gaza Strip on Monday, though major obstacles still lie in the way of rapprochement.

A crowd of hundreds welcomed Rami Hamdallah, a representative of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah party, after he passed through the Erez border crossing from Israel to enter Gaza, which is controlled by Hamas, the Washington Post reported.

Footage of the event showed well-wishers cramming rooftops and balconies, and some waving yellow Fatah flags, as Hamdallah made his way through packed streets. 

“We came back to Gaza to end all signs of division and rebuild,” Hamdallah said at a televised news conference. “There will be no Palestinian state without Gaza.”

Hamas seized power in Gaza in 2007 after bloody street fighting when Fatah refused to recognize Hamas’s election win and give up control. Fatah, which runs the Palestinian Authority, has been responsible for administering areas of the Israeli-occupied West Bank. In recent months, Egypt has brokered talks aimed at bringing the two sides together.

In what was seen as a gesture of goodwill, Hamas invited Hamdallah’s unity government, led by Fatah, to take control of administrating Gaza last month. 

Hamas also dissolved its own administrative committee and said it was ready to hold elections.

“Hamas now isn’t interested in ruling Gaza alone,” said Ghazi Hamad, a de facto foreign minister for Hamas in Gaza. “We want to stop bleeding and have one political system and save our power and energy to struggle against Israel.”

Hamas has struggled to rule under years of blockade by Israel, but Fatah also has imposed punitive measures against the militant group in recent months, requesting that Israel cut its electricity supply and ceasing payments to government employees in the strip. 

Husam Zomlot, the chief representative of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s Washington office, said the meetings in Gaza mark a milestone in the Palestinian quest for an independent state. The PLO is recognized by more than 100 states as the representative of the Palestinian people.

Source: MENA