Hamas rejects terror label of Egypt Islamists

[oberliner]

The Palestinian group Hamas condemned on Tuesday Egypt's designation of the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist group last week, reaffirming its solidarity with the ousted movement despite a crippling blockade imposed by Cairo.

Ismail Haniyeh, prime minister of the Hamas Gaza government, also snubbed calls by some rival Palestinian factions to sever its connections with the Brotherhood.

"We reject such a classification for the Muslim Brotherhood group. No one, regardless of its influence, can push Hamas or any of the Palestinian resistance factions to abandon their ideology, abandon their history," Haniyeh told reporters.

Egyptian prosecutors and officials say the Muslim Brotherhood has links with domestic Islamist militants who have stepped up attacks on security forces across the country.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/12/31/us-palestinians-hamas-egypt-idUSBRE9BU0D120131231

[Jefferson23]

1. Haniyeh: Egypt will not declare Hamas a 'terrorist group'

http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=661733

*politics.