Gaza/Ramallah - A defiant Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail
Haniya declared early Friday that he was staying in office, ignoring
a decree issued by beleaguered President Mahmoud Abbas that dissolved
the unity government between their respective Hamas and Fatah
movements.
Haniya's radical Islamic Hamas completed its 'conquest' of the
Gaza Strip late Thursday after the last of four major
Fatah-controlled headquarters in Gaza City - Abbas' presidential
compound on the beach-side in the west - fell to Hamas militants
shortly before midnight.
Fatah security officers holed up inside gave up without a fight,
Hamas said.
Abbas issued the decree after an emergency meeting of the Fatah
Central Committee and Palestine Liberation Organization Executive
Committee, spokesman Tayeb Abdel Rahim told reporters in the West
Bank city of Ramallah, calling Hamas' battles over Gaza security
compounds a 'criminal war.'
Under the Palestinian Basic Law, the emergency situation is valid
for one month, after which it would need to be extended by the
parliament, which is dominated by Hamas. Abbas was said to be
planning the appointment of an independent at the head of an interim
cabinet in Haniya's stead.
Terming Abbas' decree 'hasty,' Haniya told a news conference in
Gaza that he would continue to head the national government.
He denied Hamas was trying to create a separate Islamic state in
the Gaza Strip, saying 'no' to such a state and calling the Strip
only part of the Palestinian homeland.
Hamas would restore security in the Gaza Strip, he said, urging
the movement's militants and security forces to 'enforce law and
order' and protect private property.
Hamas won Palestinian elections in January 2006, but it agreed to
a unity government with Fatah in March this year in an effort to end
months-long bloody fighting between the two rival movements. Tensions
continued, however, and in the latest fighting that has lasted a
week, more than 85 people have been killed.
Shortly before the capture of Abbas' compound - which includes his
residence, offices and the headquarters of his Force 17 Presidential
Guard - the Saraya headquarters fell with masked and uniformed Hamas
militants plundering the building, looting weapons, armoured vehicles
and documents and carrying away computers.
The other major headquarters, the Preventive Security and General
Intelligence, were seized earlier, prompting Hamas spokesman Sami Abu
Zuhri to declare 'the beginning of Islamic rule' over Gaza and the
'second liberation' of the Strip, the first from Jewish settlers in
the summer of 2005 and the second from the 'traitors.'
Fatah militants, meanwhile, shot dead a Hamas member early Friday
in Nablus in the West Bank, where Fatah remained the dominant force,
as revenge for the killing of a senior local Fatah commander from
central Gaza the previous night.
Samih al-Madhoun had run over a Hamas checkpoint, shooting dead a
Hamas militant, after which he was captured and taken to the dead
man's home, where he was executed him, witnesses said.
The conflict caused countries and organizations around the world
to scramble to try to resolve the conflict.
The Arab League has called an emergency session Friday in Cairo
and called on the Palestinians 'in the name of all Arabs' to stop the
killing.
Calls for peacekeepers for the Gaza Strip were made at the United
Nations in New York, and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said Abbas
and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert discussed an international
deployment with him in a telephone call.
Ban said many questions remained to be answered about a potential
international deployment, including where such troops would be
deployed and what their mission would be while Hamas rejected such a
deployment altogether with Zuhri saying Hamas would see it as an
occupational force.
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur 
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