Palestinian faction calls for redefining negotiations with Israel

A leftist Palestinian faction, called on Saturday for redefining the strategy of peace talks with Israel. "The new strategy should comprise the resistance work against the occupation and the political work to garner support for the Palestinian cause," Saleh Zidan, a politburo member of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) which a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), told thousands of people who gathered in Gaza City to mark the DFLP's 44th anniversary. The crowds chanted slogans in support of Palestinian hunger- strikers in Israeli jails and deploring the political split between rival factions of Hamas and Fatah. "The Palestinian people want to end the split," Zidan said, referring to the 2007 street fighting which ended with Islamic Hamas movement routing forces loyal to President Mahmoud Abbas and taking over the Gaza Strip. The negotiations between Palestinian and Israel broke down in 2010 over a dispute on the settlement expansion. Last November, the United Nations accepted Palestine as a non-member observer state despite Israel's opposition.