Al-Jazeera leaks show Palestinian Authority's 'ugly face': Hamas

Secret documents released by Al-Jazeera show that PA was willing to cede large parts of east Jerusalem to Israel.

GAZA: Gaza's Hamas rulers on Monday lashed out at the Palestinian Authority after leaked documents showed its negotiators were willing to cede large parts of east Jerusalem to Israel.

The cache of documents published by Al-Jazeera news channel, which detail Israeli-Palestinian contacts over more than a decade, also show Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas was warned in advance of Israel's 2008 invasion of Gaza.

Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said the documents revealed “the ugly face of the Authority, and the level of its cooperation with the occupation”.

“These secret documents that were presented by Al-Jazeera are serious,” he said.

They show “the level of the Fatah Authority's involvement in attempts to liquidate the Palestinian cause, particularly on the issue of Jerusalem and refugees, and its involvement against the resistance in the West Bank and Gaza Strip”.

The Palestinian Authority is controlled by the secular Fatah movement, the sworn rival of Hamas.

The movement has controlled Gaza since 2007, when it routed Fatah forces in a fighting, a year after winning legislative elections.

Hamas and Fatah have been bitter opponents for several years, but resentment boiled over after Hamas's election win and its successful takeover of Gaza in 2007.

Since then, the Palestinian territories have been effectively split in two, with Abbas' rule confined to the West Bank. The parties held reconciliation talks last September and November but without any progress.

Relations were further frayed after US diplomatic cables leaked by whistleblower website WikiLeaks showed that Fatah had urged Israel to attack Hamas in 2007.

The cables also showed that Israel offered to coordinate its 2008 Operation Cast Lead offensive in the Gaza Strip with Fatah, an offer the group refused.

Israel launched Operation Cast Lead in December 2009 in response to rocket fire from the Gaza Strip.

The operation, which ended 22 days later with a ceasefire on January 18, 2009, killed 1,400 Palestinians, more than half of them civilians, and 13 Israelis, 10 of them soldiers.