GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — Hamas describes its recent visit to Russia as productive, and it certainly covered a lot of ground. A delegation of the movement's leaders went to Russia to keep Moscow in the loop on Palestinian-Israeli problems and the Palestinian quest for statehood, to discuss the Palestinian reconciliation and to enlist Russia to pressure the international Quartet to lift the siege imposed on Gaza and provide humanitarian aid.
The delegation's Sept. 18 trip to Russia "tackled the movement's decision to dissolve its administrative committee [in Gaza] and called on the consensus government [in the West Bank] to come to the Gaza Strip and immediately perform its functions and duties amid the movement’s approval to hold general elections," Hamas said in a Sept. 21 statement.