Hamas said today that former US President Jimmy Carter would meet two of its leaders from Gaza in Egypt, in further defiance of Israeli leaders, who have shunned him over his contacts with the Islamist group.
Hamas official Ayman Taha said senior leaders Mahmoud al-Zahar and Saeed Seyam would travel to Cairo later in the day for talks with Mr Carter, who began a Middle East visit on Sunday.
"Mr Carter asked for the meeting. He wanted to hear the Hamas vision regarding the situation, and we are interested in clarifying our position and emphasising the rights of our people," Mr Taha said.
Mr Carter's delegation in Israel declined to comment.
Mr Carter had wanted to visit the Gaza Strip, which is governed by Hamas, but Israel rejected his request. All the border crossings between Israel and the Gaza Strip are controlled by Israel state. Egyptian forces are stationed at Gaza's southern border, which is usually closed.
On the eve of his visit, the former president said that if Israel was "ever going to find peace with justice concerning the relationship with their next-door neighbours, the Palestinians, that Hamas will have to be included in the process."
Yesterday, in the occupied West Bank, Mr Carter met Naser al-Shaer, who served as deputy prime minister in the Hamas-led government that the United States and other Western powers boycotted.
Mr Shaer said he and Carter had discussed efforts to broker an unofficial truce between Israel and Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip. He said Mr Carter had also voiced a desire to help in trying to end the enmity between Hamas and Fatah.
Hamas, which took control of the Gaza Strip by force in June from Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah faction, has rejected Western demands to recognise Israel, renounce violence and accept existing Israeli-Palestinian interim peace deals.
Mr Carter has angered the Israeli government with plans to meet Hamas' top leader, Khaled Meshaal, in Syria, and by describing Israeli policy in the occupied Palestinian territories as "a system of apartheid" in his 2006 book
Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid.
Mr Carter, a broker of Israel's 1979 peace treaty with Egypt, met Israel's ceremonial president Shimon Peres on Sunday but was shunned by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and other ministers.