Hundreds flee Hamas-run Gaza amid fears

Gaza, June 16: Hundreds of Fatah supporters fled the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip by land and sea today and the Islamist group threatened to take its fight against Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's forces to the West Bank.

Abbas, who leads the secular Fatah faction, is set to swear in an emergency government tomorrow at 1530 hrs IST that will bring an end to a US-led aid embargo.

Prime Minister-designate Salam Fayyad has selected 14 ministers to serve in his cabinet, officials said. Hamas says the cabinet's appointment amounts to a coup.

Abbas sacked a Hamas-led unity government after Islamist forces routed Fatah in the Gaza Strip and began imposing a new order and making key security appointments.

Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri said 150 Hamas supporters were ''abducted'' in the occupied West Bank in what he called acts of ''real terrorism'' by Fatah forces there. ''We will not stand handcuffed against these crimes in the West Bank. We will take all steps to secure an end to these crimes,'' he said.

The US consul-general who handles relations with the Palestinians said Washington would lift a ban on direct financial aid to the new emergency government, clearing the way for the European Union and Israel to follow suit.

''There won't be any obstacles economically and politically in terms of re-engaging with this government .. They will have full support,'' Jacob Walles told Reuters after meeting Abbas at his West Bank headquarters in Ramallah, near Jerusalem.

The Quartet of Middle East peace mediators - the United States, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations - voiced support for Abbas and concern about humanitarian conditions in Gaza, but did not say whether it would ease its ban on direct aid to an Abbas-controlled Palestinian Authority.

Gaza and the much larger West Bank are only about 45 km apart, with Israel in between, but they now appear poised to function as two separate territories.

''Gaza, unfortunately at this stage, is out of the control of the Palestinian Authority,'' Abbas aide Saeb Erekat said.

Hamas said it did not seek its own state in Gaza, where 1.5 million people are crowded along 40 km of coast.

Western powers imposed an aid embargo after Hamas came to power in March 2006 because it failed to recognise Israel, renounce violence and accept interim peace deals.

Hamas set up checkpoints in Gaza to prevent high-ranking Fatah officials from leaving the coastal enclave.

Palestinian officials said hundreds of Fatah supporters were allowed by Israel and Egypt to travel to the West Bank.

An Israeli army spokeswoman said Israel had allowed people to leave Gaza for the West Bank on a case-by-case basis but the border was later closed.

''I will not live in a Hamas-run state,'' said Shadi, a fighter from Abbas's Fatah faction, after escaping Gaza for the occupied West Bank through an Israeli crossing point.

West Bank Trouble

About 50 Fatah gunmen and 200 other demonstrators stormed a Palestinian parliament building in Ramallah. The militants grabbed the deputy speaker, who is aligned with Hamas, and dragged him from the building, witnesses said. He was not hurt.

In Hebron, another West Bank city, militants of al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an offshoot of Fatah, stormed government offices and set up checkpoints to search for Hamas members.

Many Fatah supporters in Gaza fear reprisals from Hamas. ''We were destroyed ... I feel lost,'' said Umm Rami, whose husband is a colonel in the Fatah-dominated National Security Forces.

Fayyad, a Western-backed technocrat and former finance minister, finalised the formation of the new government and will unveil the line-up tomorrow, Abbas aide Yasser Abed Rabbo said.

Ismail Haniyeh, who became prime minister after Hamas won the 2006 parliamentary election, refuses to accept his dismissal.

In an interview with a French newspaper, he ruled out setting up a Palestinian state in the Gaza Strip. ''Separation is not on the agenda and never will be,'' Haniyeh said.

Palestinian police chief Kamal el-Sheikh, who is based in the West Bank, ordered his men in Gaza not to work or obey Hamas orders. Haniyeh responded by appointing what he called a ''higher police command'' above el-Sheikh.

Under Palestinian law, Abbas can declare a state of emergency for up to 30 days. This could be extended for another 30 days, but only with the approval of two thirds of parliament.

Hamas has a majority in the parliament although Israel's arrests of nearly half of Hamas's deputies put that majority in doubt and also made it hard to achieve a quorum. That could enable Abbas to keep the state of emergency in place longer.

Reuters

Related Stories