The western diplomatic boycott of the Palestinian Authority government was eased on Monday in a meeting between Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh and the Norwegian deputy foreign minister, Raymond Johansen, in Gaza.
Norway announced Saturday that it recognizes the Palestinian unity government and plans to hold diplomatic ties with it. Johansen and Haniyeh discussed the relations between Norway and the Palestinian Authority and ways to lift the embargo that has been imposed on the Palestinians for the past year.
The Norwegian envoy also met with Palestinian Foreign Minister Ziad Abu Amr, and expressed his hope that the unity government would accept the Quartet's demands, make efforts to end violence against Israel and promote the release of kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. Monday's meeting marks the first time since Hamas ' rise to power in January 2006 that an official representative of a western country has visited the PA.
Before the Norwegian envoy had even left the Palestinian Authority The Jerusalem Post carried this report on what the Norwegian’s new best buds were up to:
Hamas's armed wing claimed responsibility for shooting an Israeli electrical worker near the Karni crossing on Monday, only days after the establishment of a new Palestinian unity government with Fatah. The 40-year-old worker was moderately wounded by a Palestinian sniper and was evacuated to Beersheba's Soroka Hospital for treatment. According to Israel Radio, Hamas claimed that the latest attack was in retaliation for Israel's "crimes in the West Bank."
Meanwhile Egyptian authorities announced they had apprehended an alleged Hamas suicide bomber reports Ynet News:
Egyptian authorities have detained a Palestinian man who they contend was planning to carry out a suicide attack inside Israel, an Egyptian security official said Monday. The man, Salah Adnan Saleh Abdel-Salam, 21, was arrested after he left a mosque in the border city of El-Arish in the Sinai Peninsula, police said.
An Egyptian official, Capt. Mohammed Badr of the North Sinai Peninsula police unit, said the man had confessed to belonging to the militant Hamas group and to planning a suicide attack in Israel. There was no way to independently confirm that.
Abdel-Salam was a student at al-Azhar University’s college of science and economy in the Gaza Strip, police said, before transferring last year to the same university in Cairo. The Palestinian recently donated a kidney to an acquaintance, who later tipped authorities to his plans, police said.
How about the next time Norway gets invaded - Allied forces ban any and all liberation attempts.
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