Hamas denies Senegal remarks on Gaza ceasefire
BEIRUT (Reuters) - The Palestinian group Hamas denied a Senegalese government statement on Monday that the Islamist group was ready to sign a ceasefire agreement for Gaza.
Senegal's Foreign Ministry had said that Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal had told Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade in a phone call that he was ready to sign a ceasefire that would involve Israel ending its attacks and blockade of the territory. "The Hamas movement officially denies what came in the Senegalese foreign ministry statement issued in Dakar," Hamas official Osama Hamdan, the group's representative in Lebanon, told Reuters.
Meshaal, who is based in Damascus, had told Wade that what was required was an end to the "barbaric Zionist aggression on the Gaza Strip and lifting the siege of the Gaza Strip completely and finally," Hamdan said.
"Any talk about the future in any matter will not happen until after the end of the attack and the lifting of the siege," Hamdan added, quoting Meshaal's conversation with Wade, current president of the 56-member Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC).
More than 300 Palestinians have been killed in three days of Israeli attacks on Gaza, which is controlled by Hamas.
The Senegalese statement said Wade had proposed "a definitive truce between Israel and Hamas through the signing of an agreement that engages Hamas in the immediate observation of a ceasefire in exchange for an immediate ceasefire by Israel accompanied by a total lifting of the blockade on Gaza."
"The Hamas leader said he was ready to sign such an accord in a place to be chosen by common consent between the two sides," the ministry had said in the statement.
In a separate statement, Wade condemned the Israeli air strikes on Gaza as "unacceptable."
"The acting president of the OIC demands that Israel immediately stop the air bombardments and abstains from all attacks on the Palestinian territory.
(For full Reuters Africa coverage and to have your say on the top issues, visit: africa.reuters.com/)
(Reporting by Laila Bassam in Beirut and Pascal Fletcher in Dakar; Editing by Richard Balmforth)
