Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' emergency cabinet,
bolstered by Western promises to resume aid, vowed Monday to exert
its authority over the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.
"The government will pursue its jurisdiction over all parts of
the homeland, regardless of what happened in Gaza," Abbas'
Information Minister Riyad al-Malki told reporters after the new
government met in the West Bank town of Ramallah.
Abbas formed the new cabinet last week in the West Bank after
the Hamas Islamist group's armed wing routed security forces
dominated by his Fatah movement in Gaza.
It is unclear how much influence Abbas' government can have in
Gaza, now a Hamas fiefdom. Gaza and the West Bank are separated by
45 km of Israeli territory.
Abbas' forces are focused on trying to prevent any spillover of
the fighting from Gaza to the West Bank, where Fatah holds sway
under Israeli occupation and where Hamas has threatened
reprisals.
"We still do not have a clear plan," Malki said. Asked how he
would enforce the law in violence-prone Gaza, Abbas' interior
minister in charge of security, Abdel-Razzak Yahya, said: "I swear
to God I do not know."
Official sources with Abbas office said that the Palestinian
Council of National Security formed in late march by both Abbas of
Fatah and the former Prime Minister Ismail Haneya of Haneya has
been dissolved under a new presidential decree.
The sources said that Abbas whereat ordered to form a new
national security council and appointed Prime Minister of the
emergency government Sallam Fayyad as the head of the council.
Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas has said he still considers a
three-month-old unity coalition in which he is prime minister as
the legitimate Palestinian government and accuses Abbas of
participating in a US-led plot to overthrow him.
The European Union said Monday it wants to resume direct aid to
the Palestinians, but did not say when funds would be freed up.
US President George W. Bush called Abbas to extend support and
Abbas told him he was ready to "open the door" to renewed peace
talks, an aide to Abbas said.
The United States is set to lift a ban on direct aid to the
Palestinian government formed by Abbas for the first time since an
embargo imposed when Hamas rose to power in early 2006 and refused
to recognize Israel.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said in New York that Israel
would release frozen tax revenues to Abbas and "take perhaps more
risks" in cooperating with Abbas's government.
Washington wants to accelerate talks between Olmert and Abbas on
Palestinian statehood in the West Bank, while isolating Hamas
economically, diplomatically and militarily in Gaza.
The Jewish state renewed full fuel supplies to Gaza after
halting them a day earlier, but issued orders to block cargo
shipments to the strip.
An Israeli defense official, Shlomo Dror, said Israel may
airlift food if necessary to avert a humanitarian crisis for 1.5
million Palestinians living there. Key crossings between Israel and
Gaza have remained largely shut for days.
Palestinians in Gaza responded to the threatened blockade by
stocking up on extra food at the local grocer.
"We are neither Hamas or Fatah, so why should we be punished?"
said Huda, 29, a mother of two, as she loaded up on extra milk.
Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, who met European foreign
ministers in Luxembourg to press them to keep isolating Hamas, said
Israel should seize an opportunity offered by the political
divisions between the West Bank and Gaza.
"We should take advantage of this split to the end," Livni said.
"It differentiates between the moderates and the extremists."
Livni also said Abbas's "new government can send a message of
hope" for the prospect of future peace talks.
Some European diplomats have expressed misgivings about the
US-Israeli strategy and whether it could deliver a lasting
solution. Others point to questions over the legal underpinnings of
the cabinet Abbas set up by decree over Hamas' objections.
Also on Monday, one Palestinian was killed and six wounded in a
crossfire between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian militants at
Erez Crossing on the borders between northern Gaza and Israel,
medical sources and witnesses said.
An eyewitness said that he saw four Palestinian young men, one
of them riding on a bicycle arrived at Erez Crossing, joining
dozens of men, women and children stranded at the crossing.
Then the four young men took guns hidden under their clothes and
threw hand grenades at Israeli soldiers stood in the Israeli side
of the crossing behind the main gate, according to the witness.
The gunmen ran away after opening fire at the Israeli soldiers,
and several Palestinians were injured by the fragments of the
grenades and the gunfire of the Israeli soldiers, he said.
Medics at Shiffa Hospital said that a 30-year-old civilian was
killed and six others wounded.
Dozens of Palestinians fled Gaza Strip after the Islamic
Resistance Movement (Hamas) took over Gaza Strip security
headquarters and chose to go to the West Bank through Israel.
Palestinians in northern Gaza Strip said that Hamas gunmen were
erecting a roadblock before Erez Crossing to prevent Fatah members
and their families from fleeing.
(China Daily via agencies, Xinhua News Agency?June
19, 2007)
