Hamas vs. Fatah
Posted: Fri Jan 27, 2006 4:17 pm
Is it too much to hope that they'll just kill each other off now?
Hamas, Fatah battle over results
By Nidal al-Mughrabi
1 hour, 18 minutes ago
Hamas and Fatah gunmen exchanged fire in the Gaza Strip on Friday, fuelling fears of Palestinian turmoil following the Islamic militant group's crushing victory over the long-dominant faction in a parliamentary election.
In a bid to heal rifts after its shock triumph, Hamas said it hoped to form a unity government and would hold talks soon with President Mahmoud Abbas on a "political partnership."
Fatah leaders have rejected a coalition with Hamas.
Acknowledging Hamas's new standing as a political powerhouse, Abbas told reporters: "We are consulting and in contact with all the Palestinian groups and definitely, at the appropriate time, the biggest party will form the cabinet."
In the first armed clash between Hamas and Fatah militants since Wednesday's vote, three people were wounded in a gun battle near the southern city of Khan Younis, witnesses said.
The violence erupted, they said, after Hamas militants were angered by a sermon by a Fatah-appointed Muslim preacher during Friday prayers.
With Middle East peace diplomacy in limbo, Israel ruled out negotiations, frozen since 2000, with any Palestinian administration involving Hamas, which is sworn to Israel's destruction and has been behind dozens of suicide bombings.
Israeli interim Prime Minister Ehud Olmert repeated that message, along with a U.S.-backed peace "road map's" call for the disarming of Palestinian gunmen, in telephone conversations with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Jordan's King Abdullah, Olmert's office said.
DIVIDED OPINION
But an opinion poll in Israel's Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper showed 48 percent of Israelis favored talking to a Hamas-led Palestinian government, while 43 percent were opposed.
Olmert has hinted at unilateral moves to set a border with the Palestinians on Israeli terms. Israel has already pulled its settlers out of the Gaza Strip without negotiations, citing the current Palestinian government's failure to rein in militants.
"In the Gaza disengagement, Israel opened a window of opportunity. With these elections, the Palestinians have slammed it shut," Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni told Reuters.
Speaking in Damascus, Moussa Abu Marzouk, a senior Hamas official, said the movement had a "clear vision for a government of unity -- one in which everyone joins."
But dozens of Fatah gunmen, firing into the air, marched in the central Gaza Strip in rejection of a coalition with Hamas and Fatah's veteran leadership.
"Corrupt Fatah leaders who caused the election defeat must resign. Fatah must renew itself," a protester shouted through a loudspeaker.
In a sea of Islamic green flags and hats, some 20,000 Hamas supporters held a celebration rally in Khan Younis refugee camp.
Hamas's capture of 76 seats in the 132-member parliament against 43 for Fatah was widely seen as a political earthquake in the Middle East, triggered by voter disenchantment with corruption and the failure of peace efforts.
Ismail Haniyeh, who headed Hamas's list of candidates, said in Gaza City he had telephoned Abbas and they had agreed to meet when the president visits the city in about two days.
"We will talk about several issues including the shape of the political partnership in the coming stage," Haniyeh told Reuters.
In remarks to reporters later in the West Bank city of Ramallah, Abbas made no reference to a meeting with Haniyeh.
At a news conference in Washington on Thursday, U.S. President George W. Bush said "a political party that articulates the destruction of Israel as part of a platform is a party with which we will not deal."
Hamas has mostly respected a truce for nearly a year, but says it will not give up its guns or its charter demand for an Islamic state to encompass Israel, the West Bank and Gaza.
(Additional reporting by Corinne Heller and Ori Lewis in Jerusalem, Wafa Amr and Mohammed Assadi in Ramallah)
