Benjamin Netanyahu. Photo: Lawrence Jackson.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu released a statement Thursday critical of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s meeting with Hamas terror chief Khaled Meshaal in Cairo.

“Abu Mazen embraces the head of a terrorist organization that declared only last month that Israel must be wiped off the map. This is not how someone who wants peace behaves.”

Abbas and Meshaal met Thursday to discuss  a stalled reconciliation deal between the rival factions, a Hamas official said. The two agreed to expidite the processs.

“The two parties agreed to call on all Palestinian factions to implement the reconciliation agreement,” Hamas politburo member Izzat al-Rishq, who attended the gathering, said.

The two sides have been at odds since June 2007 when Hamas forces seized control of Gaza in a bloody conflict a year after they won a landslide victory in parliamentary elections.