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GAZA CITY (Ma'an) -- A committee representing people in Gaza who have been denied travel documents by the PA said Sunday that thousands had yet to receive passports, despite official statements that the issue had been resolved.

Fair access to travel documents was a tenet of the reconciliation deal agreed between Fatah and Hamas last May, and the West Bank coordinator of a public freedoms committee tasked with implementing reform said last month the issue had been resolved.

Lawmaker Mustafa Barghouti said at the time no citizen would be denied a passport.

Some residents of the Hamas-run Gaza Strip complained the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority in the West Bank denied them travel documents after the rivalry between the parties led to the division of the territories under separate governments in 2007.

The Gaza-based committee representing those without passports on Sunday slammed the lack of progress despite Barghouti's remarks.

Thousands remain without passports, breaking citizen's rights, and have not been given a legal reason for withholding travel documents, the committee said.

"Not allowing people to get passports and travel is a kind of evasion to avoid reconciliation," committee members told a press conference in Gaza City.

"Reconciliation is still a lie and a word disseminated on media outlets rather than something people can see in reality," they added.

The group called on the public freedoms committee to reveal what was holding up resolution of the issue, and for Egyptian mediators and party leaders to end the division harming citizen's rights.

Fatah leader President Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas chief Khalid Mashaal are set to meet Sunday in the Qatari capital to review progress on a reconciliation deal between their parties.