EGYPT:FORMER US president Jimmy Carter is set to meet Hamas chief Khaled Mishaal in Damascus today in spite of stiff opposition from the US and Israel.
This will be the third encounter for Mr Carter with leading figures in Hamas, which is classified as a terrorist organisation by the US, Israel and the EU.
Yesterday, Mr Carter held discussions with Mahmoud Zahar and Saeed Seyam, senior Hamas officials from Gaza who travelled to Cairo for the meeting because Israel barred Mr Carter from entering Gaza.
Speaking at the American University in Cairo after talks with the officials Mr Carter called the blockade of Gaza a crime and an atrocity and said US attempts to undermine Hamas had been counterproductive.
He said Palestinians in Gaza were being "starved to death", receiving fewer calories a day than people in the poorest parts of Africa. "It's an atrocity what is being perpetrated as punishment on the people in Gaza. it's a crime . . . I think it is an abomination that this continues to go on," he said.
Israel has been blockading Gaza for most of the time since Hamas took control of the impoverished coastal strip in June last year, allowing only basic supplies to enter.
Although shunned by Israeli policy-makers during his current regional tour and criticised by the US state department, Mr Carter holds that negotiations between Palestinians and Israelis cannot prosper unless Hamas is involved. Hamas won the 2006 Palestinian parliamentary election and rules Gaza.
Mr Mishaal has headed Hamas's politburo since 1995. Israeli intelligence agents tried to inject him with poison in 1997 in Jordan but the Israelis were caught and King Hussein held them until an antidote was provided.
In a recent interview Mr Mishaal argued that once Israel withdraws from Palestinian territory occupied in 1967 and Palestinian refugee rights are respected, Hamas would be prepared to observe a long-term truce while the two sides negotiate an accommodation. But he observed that Israel has refused to withdraw from the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and will not grant concessions on refugees or the construction of settlements.
