Hamas official rules out direct talks with Israel

GAZA CITY — Hamas' former Gaza prime minister Ismail Haniya said on Saturday the Islamist Palestinian group would not hold any direct talks with Israel.

There would be "no direct negotiations with the Zionist enemy", Haniya said in a public address in the Gaza Strip, and called on Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to "review" his own strategy of talks with Israel.

Hamas does not recognise Israel which denounces Hamas as a "terrorist" organisation, and the two sides have never had any overt direct contact.

But on Friday, exiled Hamas official Musa Abu Marzouq — who is one of the movement's two deputy leaders along with Haniya — said direct talks with Israel might be unavoidable in light of planned negotiations in Cairo to consolidate last month's tentative Gaza truce.

"If the situation remains as it is now... Hamas could find itself forced to do this," Abu Marzouq said, referring to the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza after 50 days of Israeli pounding from air, land and sea, which ended on August 26.

"From a legal [Islamic] perspective there is nothing wrong with negotiating with the occupation," he said, indicating it could be necessary in order to guarantee the "rights" of the people of Gaza.

Truce talks are due to resume in Egypt later this month, but Hamas chief Khaled Mishaal has himself ruled out face-to-face dealings with the Israelis.

"Direct negotiations with the Israeli occupier are not on the agenda of Hamas; if negotiations are necessary they must be indirect," he said on Friday after meeting Tunisian President Moncef Marzouki in Tunis.

Mishaal has also rejected Israeli demands that Gaza reconstruction be linked to the disarmament of Hamas and Haniya restated that line on Saturday.

"The weapons of the resistance are a red line," he said. "You cannot make [them] bargaining chips for reconstruction."