Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh has again clarified that – contrary to analysis in some corners of the foreign policy community, and despite expressions of optimism by some Western diplomats – his organization will not recognize Israel:

Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh said Tuesday that Palestinians would not recognize Israel, despite the siege on Gaza and two wars… The Hamas leader highlighted his government’s efforts to generate support for Jerusalem. “The (Israeli) occupation built a hundred synagogues around al-Aqsa to deceive the world and falsify facts,” he added.

Haniyeh’s statements come in the aftermath of a separate speech in which he declared that Israel would have to be destroyed to make way for a Palestinian state.

Hamas controls territory in the Gaza Strip that Palestinians reserve for themselves as part of a future state, and there are efforts stretching back years to bridge divisions between the group and the Palestinian Fatah faction that controls Palestinian areas of the West Bank. Diplomats seek to unite the two territories under a single Palestinian government, a move that is a vital prerequisite to achieving statehood. Western officials have emphasized that Hamas’s participation in any such unity government must be accompanied by Hamas meeting international Palestinian obligations for recognizing Israel.

Meanwhile a rift that developed in between Hamas and Iran-backed terror group Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) seems to have been partially overcome. PIJ broke off contacts with Hamas earlier this week after Hamas police forces killed a PIJ chief. Today those contacts were restored:

Jihad spokesman Daoud Shihab told Ma’an that full contact between both groups was resumed on Wednesday after a Hamas delegation visited the home of Jihad leader Muhammad Harazein to apologize over an alleged assault during the funeral for a slain Jihad member. Islamic Jihad claim that Harazein was hit by a jeep driven by a Hamas member during the funeral procession for Raed Qassim Jundeyeih, a Jihad fighter killed a day earlier in a shootout with Hamas police forces.

[Photo: AlJezeeraEnglish / Youtube]