Israel suspends security ties with Palestinians

By Adel Abu Nimeh

JERICHO, West Bank (Reuters) – Israel suspended formal
security ties with the Palestinians on Monday in a bid to
further isolate the new Hamas government one day after
declaring it a hostile entity.

Thousands of Palestinians poured into Gaza streets to
protest both aid cuts by Western powers and a sharp increase in
military action by Israel.

Avi Dichter, a top adviser to interim Israeli Prime
Minister Ehud Olmert, told Israel radio that a ground assault
of Gaza could not be ruled out.

“We have done it in the past and can do so in the present,”
said Dichter, who may be appointed to a senior security post in
Olmert’s new cabinet.

Israel has stepped up strikes in Gaza since election victor
Hamas took control of the Palestinian Authority in late March.

A shell landed near a house in north Gaza on Monday,
wounding two Palestinians, witnesses said. Israel says the
shelling is meant to combat rocket attacks by militants.

Having ruled out contacts with the Hamas-led Palestinian
Authority, the army moved on Monday to suspend remaining
security coordination.

At a joint coordination office near the West Bank city of
Jericho, Palestinian Colonel Khaled Ziyar and his men piled
their belongings on to a pick-up truck and turned keys to the
facility over to the Israelis.

The Palestinian officers took down posters of President
Mahmoud Abbas and a Palestinian flag, marking a formal break in
relations.

The Jericho district coordination office, located on the
outskirts of Jericho, was the last security facility to be
manned by both Israelis and Palestinians.

In other parts of the West Bank, cooperation was done by
telephone.

Hamas officials said Israel’s decision, and newly announced
cuts in direct Western financial aid to the Palestinian
Authority, amounted to collective punishment of the Palestinian
people.

“This is an injustice, and we call on the European
countries to reconsider their decision,” Ahmed Bahar, deputy
speaker of the Hamas-led Palestinian parliament, told
protesters in Gaza ahead of a meeting at which EU foreign
ministers were expected to endorse the aid cuts.

‘POLICY OF BLACKMAIL’

“We tell the whole world, the United Nations, the Quartet,
that the policy of blackmail through stopping aid will not
break the will of our people,” Khader Habib, an Islamic Jihad
political leader, said.

Earlier on Monday, Palestinian children threw eggs at UN
offices in Gaza to protest the aid cuts.

While the Israeli army has suspended security ties with the
Palestinians, coordination over civil matters can continue
through the office of Abbas, whose Fatah faction was crushed by
Hamas in January elections.

Hamas is sworn to destroy Israel but has largely abided by
a year-old cease-fire that other militant groups have ignored.

Israel has vowed not to negotiate with Hamas unless it
recognizes the Jewish state’s right to exist, renounces
violence and accepts interim peace deals. Hamas says talks with
Israel would be futile.

Israel has halted the transfer of tax revenues to the
Palestinian Authority, but it said it would allow the frozen
funds to be used to pay the authority’s debts to Israeli
utility companies.

(Additional reporting by Allyn Fisher-Ilan and Adam Entous
in Jerusalem)