Hamas issues new security challenge to Abbas

GAZA - A new Hamas-dominated police force began patrols yesterday in defiance of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, mounting a powerful challenge to the moderate leader that could stoke more internal bloodshed.

Interior Minister Saeed Seyam declared the security service operational after the killings of two Hamas militants by gunmen in Gaza in the past two days. In fresh violence in the occupied West Bank, Israeli forces shot dead two Islamic Jihad militants.

About 30 members of the new force, armed and wearing military fatigues, patrolled the market of Nusseirat refugee camp, a Hamas stronghold in the Gaza Strip. Some wore headbands emblazoned with the name "Qassam", Hamas' armed wing.

Witnesses said members of the force also deployed along main roads, including the north-south Gaza highway, and some were on mobile patrol.

Abbas, whose Fatah party was defeated by Hamas in a January election, has rejected the new 3000-member force which the Islamic militant group has said would be comprised of its own fighters and gunmen from allied factions.

At a news conference, Seyam said the contingent would tackle a "state of chaos and anarchy and increasing assaults on our people".

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.

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.

Three gunmen were killed and a dozen people wounded in violence between Abbas' long-dominant 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.

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.

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.

- REUTERS