By Mustafa Al Sawaf, IOL Palestine Correspondent

GAZA STRIP, July 10 ( IslamOnline) – Ismael Hanya, the director of the office of Hamas's spiritual leader Ahmad Yaseen, said Tuesday that the new Palestinian Minister of Interior Lieutenant Abdul Razzaq Al Yahya met during the last few days with a number of Hamas leaders in the Gaza Strip in the first meeting of its kind between a Palestinian minister and the leaders of the movement.

IslamOnline's correspondent knew that the meeting took place in one of Gaza's hotels.

Hanya, one of Hamas's leaders told IslamOnline that the meeting was “to coordinate, get to know and to start a system of dialogue and exchange of opinion over the suitable means of protecting the Palestinian national unity and the rights of the Palestinian people and to face the continuous aggression of the Israeli occupation.”

Hanya said that the minister presented the Hamas delegation a detailed explanation regarding the Palestinian situation in general and the reforms that the Palestinian Authority is seeking to install in its different security and non-security bodies in order to fight corruption.

He added that Al Yahya called for the importance of Hamas’s cooperation with his ministry to achieve a better life. Hanya said that the Hamas delegation gave the minister a detailed explanation of their vision for the future phase and the role of the Palestinians resistance and how it could be used as a strong card to face the external pressures that the PA is facing as well as to defeat the occupation.

Hanya added that the movement is always seeking to meet with officials in the Palestinian Authority and added that this meeting aims at creating dialogue between the various sections of the Palestinian people in order to unify the internal front.

Meanwhile, the Palestinian president Yasser Arafat has carried out a ministerial change on June 9 and in which he gave the ministry of interior to Al Yahya. Prior to this the ministry of interior and the ministry of education were both included in Arafat’s portfolio ever since the formation of the Palestinian Authority. All the Palestinian security bodies were joined under one umbrella, the Ministry of interior, making Al Yahya in charge of all Palestinian security bodies.