A public meeting at the office of the Islamic Youth Union

Gaza: the Palestinian Center for Democracy and Conflict Resolution, in cooperation with the office of the Islamic Youth Union, held a community meeting in which Mr. Hassan Abdo, the guest of this meeting, discussed the role of political parties in strengthening the concept of civil peace. The meeting was attended by 50 women from the active women's cadres of every political framework, along with the head of women's work and of the Islamic Bloc in the Strip, Mr. Waleed Halas. Mr. Hassan Abdo began this meeting with a historical overview of how political parties are formed, and then moved on to another strand, namely Palestine's geostrategic position, which has made it a place of collision and a centre of conflict. He then spoke about the healthy role that the existence of political parties in Palestine should play, which ought to be a cause for unity of land, unity of history and unity of purpose. This meeting produced a set of recommendations and proposals, the most important of which were that harmony among the political parties is an essential entry point for the success of the Palestinian national project, that there must be cooperation among all official and community organisations to resolve the problem of the division, and that all student frameworks and political parties must work to spread intellectual and political awareness in order to reject the thinking of division and to move with firmer steps towards liberation and victory, in full cooperation among all the shades and colours of the Palestinian people. This meeting comes within the activities and events of the project "Women for civil peace", which holds several community meetings and workshops inside local community organisations and Palestinian universities in the country's governorates, specifically Nablus, Hebron and Gaza.