Leaders of the Hamas Movement and the Islamic Jihad Movement during the meeting
Leaders of the Hamas Movement and the Islamic Jihad Movement held a meeting on November 1 during which both parties agreed to keep weekly anti-Israel protests in the Gaza Strip “popular and peaceful.”
“The two sides agreed to continue the Great March of Return and defying the Israeli siege until it achieves its goals that were agreed upon with the highest commission of the marches, and to keep it popular and peaceful,” the two movements said in a joint statement after the meeting, according to the Chinese Xinhua News Agency.
Furthermore, the Hamas Movement and the Islamic Jihad Movement thanked Qatar, Egypt and the U.N. for their efforts to “ease the suffering” of the Palestinian people and to end the Israeli siege on the Gaza Strip.
The two movements also agreed to reactivate their join military operations room in the Gaza Strip and to improve their coordination mechanism. Last week, Gaza witnessed some internal tension, when the military wing of the Islamic Jihad Movement launched several rockets at Israel without coordinating with the Hamas Movement.
Back then, Israel responded by striking several positions of the military wing of Hamas and accused Damascus and Tehran [allies of Islamic Jihad] of ordering the rocket strike to complicate the situation in the region.
The Israeli media viewed this meeting as an attempt to de-escalate the tension with Israel. However, the reactivation of the join operations room indicates and the call for more protests indicate that the meeting was aimed at solving some minor disagreements between the Hamas Movement and the Islamic Jihad Movement.
