ISLAMABAD, July 07 (Alliance News): Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh met in public for the first time in years to mark the anniversary of Algeria’s independence.
According to a foreign media, Algeria’s state broadcaster reported that representatives of the Palestinian Authority and the Hamas movement also attended the meeting, which it called “historic.”
The two leaders last met face-to-face in Doha in October 2016.
In a recent meeting, they met with Algerian President Abdelmajid Taboun, whose country celebrated its 60th anniversary of independence from France.
Mahmoud Abbas’s secular Fatah party, which dominates the Palestinian Authority that rules the occupied West Bank, has been at odds with Hamas since the 2007 elections, when Hamas took control of Gaza.
Algerian President Mahmoud Abbas has also signed a document naming a street in the West Bank city of Ramallah “Algeria”.
Palestinian youth killed
Israeli and Palestinian officials say Israeli forces shot dead a Palestinian man in the occupied West Bank as he tried to escape a military raid.
The Palestinian Ministry of Health identified the man as Rafiq Riaz Ghanem, 20, and said he had been shot dead by Israeli troops in Jaba, a town near the northwestern city of Jenin.
The Israeli military said in a statement that it had carried out a “counter-terrorism operation” in Jabba on Wednesday morning.