Abbas, Hamas mount rival shows of force in Gaza

Mahmoud Abbas

GAZA - President Mahmoud Abbas ordered the deployment of thousands of Palestinian police in the Gaza Strip today after the new Hamas government, in a challenge to his authority, posted its own armed contingent on the streets.

A senior Palestinian security official said the deployment, to be fully implemented by Friday, would be the largest since police fanned out ahead of last year's Israeli pullout from the impoverished coastal territory after 38 years of occupation.

Both Abbas and the Hamas interior minister said they sought to stem bloodshed by rival Gaza gunmen. But with the security forces' loyalties often divided between Hamas and Abbas' long-dominant Fatah faction, further violence remained possible.

"Police forces have already begun deployment and in the coming hours national security forces will follow. We expect the deployment to be completed by morning," the Palestinian security official said.

Hours earlier, Interior Minister Saeed Seyam declared a Hamas-led, 3,000-member police force operational. About 30 of its men, armed and wearing military fatigues with Islamist insignia, patrolled central Gaza and the strip's main highway.

Seyam told reporters the new contingent would tackle the "chaos and anarchy and increasing assaults on our people", an apparent reference to violence that included the killing of two Hamas militants by Gaza gunmen in the past two days.

Abbas had opposed the deployment of the Hamas-led force.

Tawfiq Abu Khoussa, a Fatah spokesman, called on Seyam to "retract a hasty decision that may lead our people to catastrophe". Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh later met leaders of his Hamas faction and Fatah to try to calm tensions.

Abbas has been struggling to revive peacemaking with Israel since the hard-line Hamas crushed Fatah in January elections.

The ascent to power of an Islamist group sworn to the Jewish state's destruction drew swift economic sanctions from abroad.

Western donor nations, demanding Hamas renounce violence, recognise Israel and accept existing interim peace agreements, have cut off funding to the Palestinian Authority, leaving 165,000 government employees unpaid since March.

The deepening poverty in Gaza and the Israeli-occupied West Bank, another territory where Palestinians seek statehood, has spread fresh rancour against Hamas.

Hundreds of government workers blocked the main road in the West Bank city of Ramallah, demanding their wages. "Haniyeh, we have no bread at home," members of crowd shouted.

Three gunmen were killed and a dozen people hurt in violence between Fatah and Hamas last week fuelled by a power struggle between his loyalists and Haniyeh supporters.

Seyam said attacks by "armed gangs" were part of "a plot to destabilise the Palestinian territories and match the pressure being applied on the government". He said security services he oversees had been unwilling or unable to implement his orders.

Just hours after Seyam's announcement, members of the force ejected students from Education Ministry offices in the Gaza town of Khan Younis, where they were protesting against exam fees, witnesses said.

In fresh violence in the occupied West Bank, Israeli forces shot dead two Islamic Jihad militants.

- REUTERS