Jun. 14, 2007 7:23 | Updated Jun. 14, 2007 13:53
Key security HQ in Gaza City, last Fatah stronghold, falls
By JPOST STAFF, KHALED ABU TOAMEH, AND AP
Hamas fighters overran Fatah-allied Preventive Security headquarters in Gaza
City on Thursday, a key target in their battle to control the entire Gaza
Strip, witnesses and a security agency official said.
One witness, Jihad Abu Ayad, said Hamas gunmen were bringing Preventive
Security men out of the building and executing them in the street.
Moments after the key security command was taken over, aides said that
Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas gave his first order to his elite
presidential guard to strike back against Hamas rivals.
However, PA officials told the Jerusalem Post that no decision had yet been
made and that a meeting between Abbas and his security officials had not yet
reached its conclusion.
Nevertheless, the PA officials said that Abbas was expected to officially pull
Fatah out of the PA unity government.
a.. The coup de grace to Fatah sovereignty occurred a day after 35 Palestinians
were killed in factional fighting in the Gaza Strip.
Earlier, Fatah operatives called on Abbas to order a move from defense to
offense, "even at the price of thousands of dead Palestinians," to avoid losing
the Gaza Strip to Hamas.
The call to Abbas Thursday morning came after Fatah officials urged Abbas to
resign Wednesday night. Fatah members have grown increasingly angry at what
they termed Abbas's failure to order a strong counter-attack to Hamas and a
lack of clear-cut orders.
More than 70 people, most of them militants, have been killed in the three days
since Gaza slid into civil war. Early Thursday, five more casualties were added
to the tally.
"There will be no dialogue with Fatah, only the sword and the rifle," Nezar
Rayyan, a top Hamas leader, told Hamas radio on Thursday.
"This is a battle between Muslims and non-believers, and God willing, we will
lead the Friday prayer in the president's office, and transform the
[Fatah-controlled] security complex into a big mosque."
During the morning's fighting, retreating Fatah forces tried to prevent further
Hamas entrenchment by blowing up their abandoned positions in central Gaza.
However, Hamas said it had seized from Fatah thousands of M-16 and Kalashnikov
rifles and pistols, communication equipment, armored vehicles, trucks,
binoculars, military outfits, tents, sleeping bags, hand grenades, mortars and
documents.
Hamas gunmen were seen driving some of the confiscated vehicles that have been
decorated with Hamas flags and signs.
Pictures of the weapons were posted on a number of Hamas-linked Web sites.
"Most of the weapons came from Egypt and Jordan over the past few years," a
senior Fatah official told The Jerusalem Post. "They did not come directly from
the US, although the Americans had initiated the supply of weapons and
ammunition."
Meanwhile, Palestinian security forces arrested eight Hamas members in the West
Bank, in the first sign that Abbas is trying to assert his control in the
territory, a security official said.
Among those arrested was a mosque preacher from a West Bank village, the
official said. He said security forces had a list of 47 names of Hamas
activists they were told to arrest.
Concurrently, hundreds of Fatah men asked Israel to help them flee the Gaza
Strip through Gaza seaport, one of the last locations in the Strip still held
by Fatah Thursday morning, for fear they would be executed by Hamas gunmen if
they remained in Gaza.
According to Israel Radio, Egypt was busy preparing plans to absorb thousands
of Palestinians attempting to flee the clashes in Gaza.
In Israel, defense officials said talking with Hamas might become unavoidable,
as closing all crossings from the Gaza Strip into Israel to avoid
intra-Palestinian violence leaking into Israel would soon cause an
unprecedented humanitarian crisis.
Israeli sources were quoted as saying that following the developments in the
strip, Israel was now viewing the Gaza Strip as a "separate enemy state".
a.. +++
a..
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1181570270703&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
a.. Jun. 14, 2007 6:39 | Updated Jun. 14, 2007 8:55
a..
Israel won't cut water to 'Hamastan'
By HILARY LEILA KRIEGER
a.. Israel will not turn off the water supply to Gaza even if Hamas takes
complete control of the Gaza Strip, a senior government official said Wednesday
night. The question of whether to continue supplying the area with electricity
would have to be evaluated, the official added.
a.. "We are not going to turn off the water for 1.8 million people," the
official said. "They are not going to be punished for what is going on there."
The question of electricity, however, will be evaluated along with numerous
other options Israel is looking at regarding both the current fighting and how
to deal with the eventuality that Hamas will completely take over the area.
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is scheduled to hold a number of high-level security
meetings on the matter Thursday. Sources in the Prime Minster's Office said he
was updated on the Gaza violence throughout the day, and that the consensus
opinion was that as bad as things might get in Gaza, Israel would not go back
inside to try and impose order.
a.. "This would only complicate the problems," the official said.
Another humanitarian issue that Israel will likely have to grapple with over
the next few days, if the fighting intensifies, is whether to allow
Palestinians fleeing the violence into Israel through the border crossings. The
Rafah crossing from Gaza to Egypt has been closed since Saturday.
Marc Otte, the EU's special Middle East envoy, told The Jerusalem Post that the
EU was not asking Israel at this time to do anything specific regarding the
fighting. He said that it would obviously "not be productive" for Israel to
take sides in this conflict.
Otte said the Egyptians, who have representatives inside Gaza, are continuing
to try and bring about a cease-fire, "but the question is what comes after the
cease-fire." Pointing out that there had been a number of cease-fires reached
and breached over the last few months, Otte said that the Palestinians "need to
decide that enough is enough and turn their energies elsewhere." But, he added,
this presently was "not the mood."
Referring to an idea Olmert floated Wednesday of an international force on the
Philadelphi Corridor between Egypt and Gaza to prevent arms smuggling into the
Gaza Strip, Otte said that this idea was only in very preliminary stages of
discussion.
"My understanding is that this issue is being discussed," Otte said, but that
there was "not a plan being rolled out at the moment."
A senior Israeli official said that the idea, first broached some three weeks
ago by the Foreign Ministry, would be discussed by Olmert when he goes to
Washington next week. Olmert is scheduled to meet US President George W. Bush
on Tuesday, and is also expected to meet separately with US Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice. This is the type of issue that would generally come up in a
meeting with Rice.
Meanwhile, Democratic Senatorial Candidate Hillary Clinton told the Post
Wednesday that when it came to the means of strengthening Fatah in its struggle
with Hamas, she was "going to leave those decisions to the Israeli government."
She was speaking after making remarks at an Orthodox Union luncheon in
Washington warning of the danger a Hamas victory would pose for Israel and the
region.
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