Gunmen from the Islamic militant Hamas organization Thursday morning broke through Fatah defenses at its Preventive Security compound in Gaza City on Thursday, after bombarding the installation for hours. Fighters from the two factions were waging heavy battles inside the compound, sources said.
All is not well for Palestinian Authority Chairman, Mahmoud Abbas, as the calls for his resignation grow louder reports the Jerusalem Post:
At a stormy meeting of Fatah leaders here, Abbas came under severe criticism for failing to issue clear orders to the PA security forces and Fatah militias in the Gaza Strip to launch counterattacks on Hamas.
Furious Fatah leaders demanded that Abbas declare a state of emergency and call early elections. They also expressed dismay with the way Abbas was handling the current crisis.
"Hamas is slaughtering our sons in the Gaza Strip and the only thing our president is doing is appealing for a cease-fire," said one Fatah leader. "We have at least 40,000 police officers and militiamen in the Gaza Strip. What's preventing them from launching a massive attack on Hamas? Does the president want to see the Gaza Strip fall into the hands of Hamas?"
Another top Fatah official called on Abbas to step down. "The president must resign," he said. "Unless he takes real measures to halt the Hamas offensive, President Abbas will face a revolt by Fatah."
And talk about an entrenched position firmly behind the eightball. The Toronto Star is still characterizing the battles as “verging of civil war.” I would suggest the civil war is nearly over in the Gaza Strip. What we are seeing now is the cleaning or mopping up stage which comes at the end of a civil war.
Al Jazeera is reporting that the UN Secretary General has suggested an international force be sent to restore order to the Gaza Strip.
The United Nations may send an international force to restore calm to the Gaza Strip wracked by deadly factional fighting.
"This is an idea we need to explore," Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general, said on Wednesday, adding that he had held preliminary discussions about the idea with members of the UN Security Council.
Ban said Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, had raised the idea with him in a phone conversation on Tuesday and noted that Ehud Olmert, Israel's prime minister, had also brought it up. "I need to consider more in detail with the countries concerned," he said, including where to locate the force and what its mandate would be.
Of course, Hamas has an opinion on any deployment of UN peacekeeping forces within its domain. Ha’aretz reports Hamas first official edit from Hamastan:
Hamas said Thursday that it would refuse to accept a multinational force along the Gaza-Egypt border and would treat it as an occupying power.
"Hamas rejects any dispatch of foreign forces to the Gaza Strip," Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri said. "The movement would regard those forces as occupation forces no different to the Israeli occupation, regardless of their nationality."
The Jerusalem Post reports Cairo isn’t down with the idea either:
Cairo vehemently objects to stationing international forces along its border with the Gaza Strip, an idea recently floated in Jerusalem, the head of the Egyptian security team in the Gaza Strip said on Saturday. Burhan Hammad, who has been mediating between Hamas and Fatah for the past year, described the talk about an international force as "nonsense."
Egypt, he said, can't accept the presence of such a force along its border with the Gaza Strip. "Egypt has a peace treaty with Israel," he said. "There is no need for an international force and Egypt won't accept the idea."
But really, what country would be fool enough to supply and deploy troops in the middle of an openly hostile and well-armed Hamastan?
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