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Hamas militia off streets after Abbas challenge

Posted on: Friday, 26 May 2006, 06:03 CDT

By Nidal al-Mughrabi

GAZA (Reuters) - The Hamas-led Palestinian government ordered its new militia off Gaza's streets on Friday in the wake of clashes with President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah movement that stirred fears of civil war.

The move comes a day after Abbas stunned Hamas with an ultimatum to back a proposal for Palestinian statehood that implicitly recognizes Israel or face a referendum on the issue.

Abbas gave the government 10 days to back the proposal, effectively going over the heads of the Islamist militants and setting the stage for a showdown. Hamas seeks to destroy Israel and has rejected Abbas's calls for talks with the Jewish state.

Youssef al-Zahar, a leader of the 3,000-strong Hamas force in the impoverished Gaza Strip, told Reuters the interior minister had ordered the pullback.

"We have received orders to withdraw from the streets and to concentrate in certain locations to be ready to rush to the scene when needed to confront chaos," Zahar said.

Government officials said the order was given to reduce tension with Fatah. Cabinet spokesman Ghazi Hamad said Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, a senior Hamas leader, had telephoned Abbas to tell him of the decision.

Clashes between Hamas and Fatah have become more frequent since the unit was deployed last week. Government officials have said the new force would not be disbanded, despite calls from Abbas to do so, but integrated into regular police units.

Abbas and Hamas have been engaged in an increasingly bitter power struggle since the Islamists took office two months ago after beating Fatah in January elections.

Raising the stakes, Abbas on Thursday gave Hamas 10 days to back a plan for a Palestinian state alongside Israel or face what would amount to a confidence vote in 40 days.

Hamas would not be "blackmailed" into accepting the plan, a member of the group's exiled leadership said on Friday.

Mohammad Nazzal did not reject the proposal outright, but he criticised Abbas for threatening to put it to a referendum.

"We see this referendum as a tool of pressure on Hamas," Nazzal told Reuters in Damascus.

Passage of the referendum might offer Hamas an opportunity to moderate its opposition to Israel and any peace negotiations without having to formally change its stance.

DEBATE

The proposal calls for a peace settlement if Israel withdraws from all of the West Bank and Arab East Jerusalem, occupied since the 1967 Middle East war.

The plan was drawn up in an Israeli jail by senior prisoners from factions including Hamas and Fatah.

Israel has not commented but has long rejected pulling back from all the West Bank. It has said it intends to keep large Jewish settlement blocs there and also considers Jerusalem its "eternal and undivided capital."

Palestinian factions involved in a final day of two days of national dialogue aimed at easing tensions on Friday debated Abbas's ultimatum.

One Hamas lawmaker, Mushir al-Masri, told Reuters Palestinians everywhere would need to take part in any referendum, a condition that would undermine efforts to hold it. Many Palestinians live in refugees camps in the Arab world.

Most polls in recent years have shown strong Palestinian public support for a state along the 1967 borders. Hamas seeks to put an Islamic state in place of Israel.

At the heart of the internal conflict is the refusal of Hamas to accept demands from Abbas and the West to recognize Israel. That stance has triggered an aid boycott that has brought the Palestinian Authority to its knees.

The prisoners' proposal calls for an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza, with Jerusalem as its capital. It also seeks a unity government.

(Additional reporting by Mohammed Assadi in Ramallah and Khaled Yacoub Oweis in Damascus)

Source: REUTERS

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