Jenin, West Bank  - Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas charged Tuesday that leaders of the Islamic Hamas movement fled to the Egyptian Sinai desert during Israel's military offensive in the Gaza Strip earlier this year.

"I will say it for the first time," he said during a speech in the northern West Bank city of Jenin. The leaders of Hamas escaped in ambulances to the Sinai and left our people to be slaughtered."

Israel launched its offensive at the turn of the year, in response to continued rocket attacks from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip. According to human rights groups, the Israeli assault left 1,400 Palestinians dead, and caused heavy damage to property and infrastructure.

The Palestinian president sharply criticized Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip since June 2007, accusing it of not wanting to reconcile with other Palestinian factions, especially his Fatah movement.

Relations between Hamas and Fatah have been tense since the former defeated the latter in the 2006 parliamentary elections. The acrimony peaked into outright violence in June 2007, when Hamas gunmen in the Gaza Strip routed forces loyal to Abbas and the Palestinian Authority and seized control of the salient.

Abbas reacted by pulling Fatah out of a short-lived unity government with Hamas and dismissing Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh from his post of prime minister. Haniyeh refused to accept his dismissal.

The two rival movements were due to meet in Cairo in two weeks to sign a reconciliation agreement. However, Hamas said it was not yet ready to sit with Abbas and shake his hand after he took the decision to defer a UN Human Rights Council debate on Judge Richard Goldstone's report on the Israeli war against Gaza.

Egypt then asked the parties to each sign its version of the agreement and postpone the reconciliation ceremonies for two months.

Fatah said it was studying the Egyptian proposal and may go ahead and sign it, but Hamas has not yet decided what to do.

Abbas said that even before Judge Goldstone issued his report, which accused Israel and Hamas of possible war crimes, Hamas was not ready to sign a reconciliation agreement.

"Hamas used the report to sabotage the reconciliation," he said, "and the proof to that is that Hamas has been asking for a postponement since November 2008. We were supposed to go to Cairo then but they said they cannot go because they were not ready for reconciliation."

According to Abbas, Hamas was happy with the status quo.

"They are satisfied with their dark rule. They are satisfied because they established this rule and sat there in the name of the international Muslim Brotherhood movement. They have reached their goal," he said.

"We tell them and tell the world: this coup must come to an end by all means except force. We will not use force. Rather we will talk and negotiate. It is not in us to shoot at our people."

Abbas reiterated his position that the only way to resolve this crisis with Hamas is to go to elections. "If you (Hamas) win the elections, I will be the first to bless it," he said.(dpa)