KHARTOUM (AFP) — Exiled Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal hailed the sweeping political changes in Egypt, which he said had given the Palestinian people their lives back, in a speech in Khartoum on Sunday.

“Today we are witnessing Cairo returning to its natural state, after it disappeared from that state for a long time,” the Palestinian Islamist leader said in a speech broadcast live on Sudanese state television.
“The people in Egypt and Tunisia have given us back our lives,” he added.
Meshaal was speaking at the opening of the eighth Al-Quds International Foundation conference, being held in the Sudanese capital this year and funded by Iran.
Egypt was the first Arab country to sign a peace treaty with Israel, in 1979, and Hosni Mubarak, who came to power two years later after his predecessor was assassinated, was overthrown last month after weeks of nationwide protests.
The toppling of Mubarak was celebrated across the Hamas-governed Gaza Strip, which neighbor Egypt had blockaded since 2007 when the Islamic resistance movement took power after winning the parliamentary elections a year earlier.
On Sunday, Meshaal called for reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah based on “jihad”, or struggle, against the Jewish state.
“The first step (to liberating Jerusalem from Israeli occupation) is refusal to negotiate with Israel... and to establish a new, reconciled Palestinian position based on jihad,” he said.
Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir reiterated his country's support for the Palestinian people in their “battle” for Jerusalem.
“What is going in the region is a prelude to the battle for Jerusalem. And we are committed to supporting the (Palestinian) people of Jerusalem in their jihad,” he told the conference in Khartoum, adding that Egypt's 1979 peace accord with Israel had been a blow to the Arabs.