Six Are Killed in West Bank as Fatah Moves Against Hamas
By ETHAN BRONNER
Published: May 31, 2009
New York Times
JERUSALEM — Palestinian Authority forces clashed with Hamas militants in the West Bank early Sunday, leaving six dead, in the bloodiest such encounter in two years.
The violence came days after Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas assured President Obama in Washington that his troops were imposing order on the area. In Gaza, Hamas reacted by arresting Fatah activists and hinting of further revenge.
The clashes and threats show that Fatah, which dominates in the West Bank, and Hamas, which runs Gaza, remain in a tense standoff, and that the Palestinian unity needed for creation of a state is far off. Both sides said unity talks mediated by Egypt were imperiled.
A spokesman for Mr. Abbas’s West Bank forces told a news conference in Ramallah that a patrol in the city of Qalqilya had come under fire Saturday night from a house, leading to a curfew and hours-long negotiations. A grenade was thrown from the house killing three security officers, the house was stormed, two Hamas militiamen, including the city commander, were killed along with the owner of the house, a bystander.
He said weapons and documents were found on the men and added that Palestinian Authority forces had found similar caches in recent months, including inside a mosque. Some 200 Hamas-affiliated men were in jail in the West Bank awaiting trial, he said but insisted they were charged with specific violations, not for Hamas affiliation.
“In the last two years, we have proved our ability to impose law and order,” the spokesman, Adnan Dameiri, told the news conference. “We will continue our campaign to dismantle armed groups.”
Hussein a Sheikh, a West Bank Fatah leader, told Israel Radio: “Whoever wants now to come in and disrupt the security and order of the Palestinian residents, to have a militia here, gangs here and there and an underground below, we won’t agree.”
The United States and European Union train and support Mr. Abbas’s troops in the hope of creating a strong enough force to prevent Hamas from challenging its West Bank rule and ultimately perhaps helping Mr. Abbas back into Gaza.
Hamas officials accused the West Bank authorities of being quislings for Israel and the West and betraying the Palestinian national cause. Israeli officials, not wanting to besmirch the Palestinian Authority among its public with a bear hug, pointedly declined comment. But Israeli soldiers control the West Bank, and Palestinian security forces coordinate their actions with them. On Thursday in the south Hebron hills, Israeli officials killed a long-wanted Hamas militant said to have been involved in planning two suicide bombings of Israelis in the 1990s.
After Hamas, an Islamist group that rejects Israel’s existence, won Palestinian legislative elections in 2006, it and Fatah tried to put together a unity government. But tensions were high and street fights in Gaza common between forces loyal to the two movements. Two years ago the skirmishes broke out into a four-day war, and Hamas took over Gaza entirely leaving Fatah in power only in the West Bank, supported by Israel.
Abu Obaida, spokesman for the Hamas military wing known as the Qassam Brigade, said at a Gaza news conference on Sunday, “We are confronting two enemies, the Israeli occupier and the agency that serves the agenda of Washington and Tel Aviv.” He added, “This spark reminds us of what happened in Gaza two years ago.”
A Fatah leader in Gaza said some of his men had been arrested on Sunday following the Qalqilya clash. Hamas leaders said that unless their men were released in the West Bank, unity talks would not proceed.
In other developments on Sunday, the Israeli cabinet rejected a bill aimed at Israel’s Arab minority that would have required a loyalty oath for citizenship. This means the bill, championed by the Yisrael Beiteinu Party of Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, has little chance of passing legislative scrutiny. It can still be presented as a private bill but without the government’s backing.
A second Yisrael Beiteinu bill that has been highly controversial was watered down by the ministers. It was aimed at barring any marking of Israel’s Independence Day as Nakba Day, meaning the day that Palestinians suffered a catastrophe. Enacting such a ban was widely viewed as a violation of the country’s free speech laws.
The ministers changed the draft of the law so that it bars the expenditure of state money to mark the Nakba. This version will still have to pass three votes in parliament and its chances are considered poor.
Israel started a five-day civil defense exercise on Sunday aimed at the possibility of coping with multiple missile attacks, the largest ever of its kind. The drill will stage mock disasters and test emergency crews in their ability to evacuate buildings. On Tuesday, sirens will sound requiring everyone to go into a secure space.
At the start of the Sunday cabinet meeting, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke of the drill and of the death on Saturday of Ephraim Katzir, who was president of Israel from 1973 to 1978 and a noted biophysicist at the Weizmann Institute. He was 93.
Khaled Abu-Aker contributed reporting from Ramallah, and Taghreed el-Khodary from Gaza.
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