Ceasefire? Not for sure. Palestinian gunmen waged a street battle outside the Gaza residence of President Mahmoud Abbas around dawn Monday, but there were no reports of injuries.
During the morning hours gunmen from Hamas and Fatah faced off in a gun battle in the middle of Gaza City, a battle that left a teenager wounded. About 10 masked Hamas gunmen, with rifles, grenades and rocket launchers, took shelter behind walls in downtown Gaza as they fought a dozen other gunmen from Fatah, witnesses said. The fighting wounded a 16-year-old boy with a bullet in the neck.
Amidst reports on a ceasefire agreement reached in the Palestinian Authority Sunday evening and on the backdrop of violent night clashes between Fatah and Hamas gunmen around the parliament building in Gaza, Abbas' office and the home of Fatah official Muhammad Dahlan, official sources in both movements denied that a truce had been reached. Four people were injured in the clashes.
Earlier, Palestinian sources reported that Fatah and Hamas representatives reached an agreement on a ceasefire and on halting the violent incidents in the Palestinian Authority, with the assistance of the Egyptian security delegation visiting the Strip. According to the report, the parties hope that the agreements will be translated into real activity in the field, and that the activists will be calmed down.
Salah Zidan, commander of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine in the Gaza area, even told al-Jazeera that his organization worked in favor of the ceasefire. He said that according to the agreement, all gunmen must withdraw from the streets.
Senior sources in Fatah and Hamas confirmed at first that a ceasefire agreement had been reached. According to Hamas representatives, as part of the agreement it was decided to resume the talks for the establishment of a unity government, stop carrying weapons in public in the streets, return the security forces to their headquarters and release the people kidnapped on both sides.
The Egyptian security delegation continues to hold talks with the parties in hopes of reaching a stable ceasefire, although reports from the Strip painted a picture of a serious escalation and a real civil war.
On Sunday evening it was reported that gunmen fired another rocket at Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' office and that an activist was killed in the northern Strip town of Jabalya. The activist, an officer in the Palestinian national security force, was shot to death by unknown gunmen in Jabalya. After he was shot, his body was thrown in the street. The man, Hamdi Rahma, is the brother of a senior officer in the Palestinian Preventative Security Service. This was the third person killed Sunday in the PA clashes. Earlier, Fatah activists kidnapped two Hamas members.
What a strange pathology the Palestinians have as the current ceasefire agreement between Hamas & Fatah bears such a strikingly resemblance to the ceasefire agreements negotiated between the Palestinian Authority & Israel. For years, I have been suggesting in jest what the international community needed to do was to deploy an international team of psychiatrists into the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Now I am suggesting it in earnest.
2 comments:
"What a strange pathology the Palestinians have as the current ceasefire agreement between Hamas & Fatah bears such a strikingly resemblance to the ceasefire agreements negotiated between the Palestinian Authority & Israel."
That's because neither one is an actual ceasefire. They're just agreements made for the news hounds, to cover up the ongoing fighting.
Par for the course.
I don't think that a cease fire will ever work. But I am always weary of Arabs bearing gifts. It seems that they only understand one thing; the rule of the sword. I worry that we, in the US, are too tolerant of the Palestinian "cause." We have a very bizarre reading of the history of the conflict. We also seem to hate democracies that work well (or well enough). I guess I should say the left hates democracy that works. Oh well.
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