Gaza, ALRAY - Al-Quds newspaper entered Wednesday morning the Gaza Strip via Beit Hanoun Crossing, Erez, as a step to achieve the Palestinian reconciliation.

The entry of the newspaper came under the framework of the procedures that were taken by the Gaza government to implement and fire up the national reconciliation following the signing of al-Shati’ agreement between Hamas and Fatah.

Local media sources reported that 30,000 copies of the newspaper have entered the Strip.

The government spokesman Ihab al-Ghusain has said earlier that these positive steps, referring to allowing Al-Quds newspaper to enter Gaza  and releasing Fateh-affiliated convicts, came in line with the national reconciliation efforts and in response to the recommendations of the Civil Liberties committee -one of five committees formed by virtue of Cairo agreement in 2011- that met in Gaza last month.

The newspaper has been allowed now to be distributed in Gaza for the first time since the events of the internal  division in 2007.

Hamas is expecting that Fatah would take a similar step by allowing Gaza newspapers to enter the West Bank.

Al Quds, the oldest and most widely circulated daily newspaper in Palestine, was founded in 1951, by the patron of Palestinian journalism the late Mahmoud Abu Zalaf. It is based in Jerusalem and distributed daily throughout the Middle East.