Hamas delays response to Palestinian unity deal

Hamas has delayed sending a delegation to Cairo to give its response to an Egyptian-proposed Palestinian reconciliation deal, a senior official in the Islamist group told AFP on Sunday.

The Hamas delegation was to travel to Cairo on Sunday, but Ayman Taha said the trip has been delayed indefinitely.

"Hamas has postponed sending its delegation to Egypt because General Omar Suleiman is not in Cairo," he said, referring to the Egyptian intelligence chief who has been brokering efforts to reconcile Hamas with its secular Fatah rivals.

"Communication between Egypt and Hamas continues," Taha said, without specifying when the delegation would travel to Cairo.

Hamas has not said what its response will be to the Egyptian unity proposal, which Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah has already signed.

Egypt, meanwhile, warned Sunday it would not wait "forever" for Palestinian factions to agree a unity deal after the Islamist movement Hamas postponed signing the accord with its Fatah rivals.

"Egypt is not prepared to wait forever," foreign ministry spokesman Hossam Zaki told Al Arabiya.

Cairo has been trying for several months to help end the division between the Gaza Strip, controlled by Hamas since June 2007, and the West Bank, where Palestinian Authority president Mahmud Abbas holds sway.

Hamas has postponed sending its delegation to Egypt because General Omar Suleiman is not in Cairo

Ayman Taha

Fatah remains popular

Meanwhile a poll showed on Sunday that Abbas's approval rating has plunged in recent weeks but his secular Fatah party remains more popular than the Islamist Hamas group,

Palestinian confidence in Abbas has dropped to 12.1 percent compared to 17.8 percent in June, according to the poll by the Jerusalem Media and Communications Centre (JMCC).

When asked whom they would vote for if presidential elections were held in 2010, Abbas polled roughly the same as Hamas prime minister Ismail Haniya and Marwan Barghouti, a Fatah leader serving five life sentences in Israel.

All three men would win the votes of 16-17 percent of those polled.

Meanwhile Abbas's Fatah party remains far more popular than Hamas, with 40 percent saying they would vote for Fatah in the next general elections compared to 18.7 percent who said they would vote for Hamas.

Abbas's decision earlier this month to support postponing the consideration of a report on the Gaza war in the U.N. Human Rights Council sparked outrage across Palestinian society, especially from Hamas, which accused him of betraying the victims of the three-week conflict at the turn of the year.

The 47-member council last week voted to approve the so-called Goldstone report after Abbas reversed course and began actively lobbying for the document, which accuses both Israel and Palestinian militants of war crimes.

The JMCC poll also found widespread disenchantment with Washington's push to restart the Middle East peace process.

The poll found that 58.4 percent of Palestinians do not believe the policies of U.S. President Barack Obama will make any difference, with just 23.7 percent saying they would improve the chances of reaching a peace agreement and 12.9 percent saying they would diminish them.