Hamas taken off terror organisation list

An Egyptian appeals court has cancelled a ruling to list the Palestinian group Hamas as a terrorist organization.

According news24, judicial sources have been quoted, as saying that Cairo has for many years played a central role in engineering ceasefires between Israel and Hamas, which dominates the Gaza Strip, including a truce reached between the sides in August that ended a 50-day Gaza war.

Hamas is an offshoot of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood which the authorities have also declared a terrorist group and have repressed since the army ousted one of its leaders, Mohammed Morsi, from the presidency in 2013.

Hamas has rejected the courts' decisions, while the Brotherhood maintains it is committed to peaceful activism and rejects links to violence.

The Egyptian Government has said that it still has two rulings placing the Brotherhood and the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades (the armed wing of Hamas) on the list of terrorist organizations.