Hamas fighters at ease inside presidental office

GAZA, June 15 (Reuters) A masked Hamas fighter sat down at Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's desk today and declared an end to the Western-backed authority in the Gaza Strip in an imaginary telephone call to the United States.

''Hello Condoleezza Rice. You have to deal with me now, there is no Abu Mazen (Abbas) anymore,'' the fighter from the Islamist movement's armed wing Izz el-Deen al-Qassam joked as he spoke into the telephone on Abbas's desk.

Following days of factional violence in which well over 100 Palestinians have been were killed, Gaza is, in effect, a new, schismatic statelet under Hamas control.

Abbas is effectively banished from the Gaza Strip to the West Bank where his secular Fatah faction has its powerbase.

In Abbas's office, the fighter, clutching his AK47 assault rifle, eased into the president's chair while he and his fellow masked gunmen took pictures of themselves.

He then strolled into Abbas's bedroom next to the office, washed his face and hands and looked at himself in the mirror before drinking mineral water from a bottle reserved for the president.

The Qassam Brigades had spread their control over the Gaza Strip, occupying Fatah security compounds including those of Abbas's presidential guards.

Abbas's guards surrendered the president's office without a fight. It was a surprise for many Gazans, who expected a tough fight between Hamas gunmen and the American-backed force.

''We dedicate this victory to our people,'' Hamas's armed wing said in a statement.

The move by Hamas was greeted with joy among the group's supporters, but created doubt among the strip's 1.5 million population over the future of the territory, which is suffering deep economic hardship.

Hamas began a crackdown against Fatah in the southern Gaza Strip towns of Khan Younis and Rafah as gunmen patrolled the streets and called on their Fatah rivals to hand over their weapons. Witnesses said hundreds of arms had been collected.

The action by Hamas rekindled memories of the major crackdown Fatah conducted against the Islamist faction in 1996, when hundreds of Hamas men were detained.

''The 1996 era has gone, Islam rules here,'' a Hamas gunmen told Reuters.

Hamas said it would grant an amnesty to a number of senior Fatah officials it had detained.

Among them were Musbah al-Bhaisi, the chief of Abbas's Presidential Guard, Jamal Kayed, chief of the largest National Security Forces, Fatah's senior Gaza political official, Majed Abu Shammala and the group's spokesman and old Hamas foe Tawfiq Abu Khoussa.

''We took the authority,'' a Hamas gunman said, as he seized a vehicle belonging to a Fatah member.

''It is a new era, an era of resistance in which there is no room for the tools of America and Israel,'' he added.

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