While this isn’t exactly a new statement, this is, perhaps, the most direct and blunt Haniyeh has been about Hamas’ developing position.

By Amira Hass, Haaretz Correspondent and News Agencies

The Hamas leader in Gaza, Ismail Haniyeh, said on Saturday his government was willing to accept a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders.

The Hamas leader spoke at a meeting with 11 European parliamentarians who sailed from Cyprus to the Gaza Strip to protest Israel’s naval blockade of the territory. Haniyeh told his guests Israel rejected his initiative.

Clare Short, who served in the cabinet of former British prime minister Tony Blair, asked Haniyeh to repeat his offer. He said the Hamas government had agreed to accept a Palestinian state that followed the 1967 borders and to offer Israel a long-term hudna, or truce, if Israel recognized the Palestinians’ national rights.

In response to a question about the international community’s impression that there are two Palestinian states, Haniyeh said: “We don’t have a state, neither in Gaza nor in the West Bank. Gaza is under siege and the West Bank is occupied. What we have in the Gaza Strip is not a state, but rather a regime of an elected government. A Palestinian state will not be created at this time except in the territories of 1967.”

For Immediate Release Date: 2008-10-28

We are returning to Gaza for exactly the same reasons we came in August: to deliver medical supplies, meet with civil society organizations, volunteer in hospitals, and visit Palestinians who have requested our presence.

The Free Gaza Movement would like to make it clear that we do not wish nor do we seek any confrontation with Israel. We have already invited Israeli Foreign Minister Aharon Abramovitz and Defense Minister Ehud Barak to join us on our voyage as long as they remain nonviolent. In August, we invited Tsipi Livni to accompany us.

Mairead Maguire, the winner of the 1976 Nobel Peace Prize and one of the passengers aboard the SS Dignity, stated: “The people of Gaza are part of our human family. The Israeli government cannot cut off Gaza forever. We will come again and again until we reach our family. We go to visit our family, and the Israeli government has no right to stop us.”

“And the servants of God most Gracious are those who walk on the earth in humility, and when the ignorant address them, they say, ‘Peace!’”Qur’an 25:63

Contact: Greta Berlin, Cyprus: +357 99 08 17 67
Angela Godfrey Goldstein, Jerusalem: +972 547 366 393
Huwaida Arraf (on boat): +357 96 723 999 / SS Dignity: +357 967 80 329
Osama Qashoo, +447833381660