10 January,2009 11:36 AM IST | | AFP
Hamas will send a delegation, including representatives from Gaza, to Cairo today to discuss an Egyptian proposal for a ceasefire, a senior Hamas official said.
Mussa Abu Marzuk, the deputy head of the Islamist movement, said the delegation will ask for clarifications of the three-point plan President Hosni Mubarak announced on Tuesday.
"In every state there are many questions and there is a need for clarifications," Abu Marzouk, who is based in Damascus, said.
The three-point plan called for a ceasefire to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza, urgent meetings with Palestinian and Israeli officials and the resumption of Palestinian reconciliation talks.
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Abu Marzuk said that Hamas had not yet chosen its representatives from the Gaza Strip. A Hamas delegation from Syria had met with Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Sulaiman on Tuesday, but today's meeting will be the first attended by Gaza representatives since Israel began its two-week long onslaught on the territory.
Abu Marzuq also refused to endorse a UN Security Council resolution issued that called for a ceasefire, saying Hamas had not been consulted.
"Hamas has no comments on the resolution, because it has not been asked to accept or reject it," he said.
France halts Hamas broadcasts to Europe
The Palestinian militant group Hamas's television channel was taken off the air in Europe less than 24 hours after it was added to a satellite network, industry officials said on Saturday.
Hamas announced on Monday that Europeans would be able to see its Al-Aqsa service - best known in the Middle East for its virulent anti-Israeli content - via the French firm Eutelsat's satellites.
Al-Aqsa is Hamas' official mouthpiece, and became notorious outside the Palestinian territories for a show in which a man-sized pink rabbit named Assud urged children to embrace martyrdom and threatened to eat Jews.
Alerted by industry sources, the French broadcasting regulator CSA this week wrote to Eutelsat and warned that much of Hamas' programming contravenes laws against inciting hatred and violence, the government body said.
