Al-Alami leads Gaza in Haniyeh’s absence

Ziad Zaza, deputy prime minister in the Gaza Strip, has confirmed politburo member Imad al-Alami will run the Palestinian territory while Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh visits Qatar. Haniyeh will leave for Doha, Qatar’s capital, next Thursday to join a political bureau meeting with other Hamas representatives. The prime minister was elected vice-president of the movement’s political bureau in Cairo last month. Zaza has meanwhile denied expectations that Israel will lift its economic blockade on the Gaza Strip, following a much discussed apology from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Turkish counterpart, Tayyip Erdogan. “The occupation has closed border crossings on 20 days during March,” he said. Gaza’s fisherman face daily restrictions and assaults from Israeli naval authorities, after Israel returned Palestinian fishing zones to three miles off-coast instead of six. The Hamas second-in-command called on the international community to stop “the crimes of the occupation.”