The Islamist Hamas movement ruling Gaza on Tuesday accused some in the international community of using a donors' conference in Egypt to "blackmail" the group into changing its policies. "Some participants, especially the US administration, to a great extent made political use of the Sharm el-Sheikh conference," spokesman Fawzi Barhum said, referring to a Gaza reconstruction conference held in Egypt on Monday.
"(They) used the need of the Gaza Strip for reconstruction to pressure Hamas and to try to blackmail it into changing its positions," he said. He went on to accuse the donors of trying to strengthen Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, whose forces were driven out of Gaza when Hamas seized power in June 2007, and of "meddling in internal Palestinian affairs."
"We have warned against this politicisation and this meddling," he said. International donors on Monday pledged 4.5 billion dollars to the Palestinians, much of it for the reconstruction of Gaza after Israel's largest-ever offensive against the territory in December and January, which killed more than 1,300 Palestinians.