Madison-Rafah Journal

Agence France-Presse, June 18, 2007

Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas swore in a new cabinet on Sunday and outlawed Islamist Hamas fighters after their violent seizure of Gaza, as Israel came under rocket fire from Lebanon in a new front to the crisis.

Adding to the tensions, Israeli troops moved into the north of the Gaza Strip — now an Islamist enclave on the Jewish state's doorstep.

Israeli Deputy Defence Minister Ephraim Sneh said the army incursion into Gaza was a "preventive" action, in effect creating a buffer zone on Palestinian territory as masked Hamas gunmen consolidated their power there.

Hamas fighters overran forces loyal to Abbas's secular Fatah movement in Gaza on Friday after a week of bitter internecine fighting which brought the Palestinians to the brink of all-out civil war and killed more than 110 people.

After swearing in the 12-member emergency cabinet headed by new prime minister Salam Fayyad at a ceremony in the West Bank town of Ramallah, Abbas swiftly took aim at Hamas, branded a terrorist outfit by Israel and the West.

"The executive force and Hamas militias are declared outside the law for having carried out an armed rebellion against Palestinian legitimacy and its institutions," the Western-backed Fatah leader said in a decree.

"Anyone whose ties with these groups is proven will be punished in accordance with the laws under the state of emergency."

Abbas, speaking at the first meeting with his new cabinet soon after the swearing in, said that the government's remit would cover both the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

But the Islamists immediately dismissed the new cabinet an "illegitimate" lackey of Israel and the United States.

"The only legitimacy it can pride itself on is the acknowledgment of the American administration and the Israeli occupation," Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zouhri told AFP.

Fatah officials hope the creation of a cabinet without Hamas will lead to the lifting of a crippling Western aid boycott imposed after the Islamists took power following their January 2006 election win.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who arrived in the United States for talks with President George W. Bush and United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon, said the developments marked a new "opportunity" in the Middle East.

"A reality has been created in recent days which we haven't had in a long time for diplomatic steps with the evolving Palestinian Authority. We intend to work with all our strength to realise this opportunity as much as we can," he told reporters on his plane.

On a new front, militants in Lebanon fired rockets into northern Israel for the first time in 10 months, with the army saying a Palestinian organisation was behind the strike, without naming it.

"There was some damage but no casualties," an army spokesman said.

Olmert said the rocket attack was "very disturbing", before meeting Ban in New York. "Lebanon has been very quiet over the past nine months and hopefully will continue to be so," he said.

In the Palestinian territories, tit-for-tat revenge attacks on Saturday stoked fears the deadly violence could spread to the West Bank, where witnesses said a Hamas militant was shot dead by masked gunmen in Nablus late Sunday.

Gazans took the opportunity to stock up on essentials, fearing a protracted Israeli blockade as long as Hamas maintains its grip on the impoverished territory of some 1.5 million people.

"Israel must reinforce the isolation of the Gaza Strip and not let anything pass except electricity and water," Israeli Infrastructure Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer told army radio, which reported that petrol supplies had been cut.

Benjamin Netanyahu, leader of Israel's right-wing opposition Likud, called for a total economic and political isolation of the Gaza Strip "because the Hamas regime must disappear".

But a senior Israeli official told reporters travelling with Olmert that the Jewish state would assure the transfer of food, water and medical supplies into Gaza. "There will not be a humanitarian crisis in Gaza," he said.

Eight Israeli human rights groups however added their voice to calls from the UN agency for Palestinian refugees for the Israel-Gaza border to be re-opened, saying the Gazans' "right to life is threatened."

New prime minister Fayyad is a respected former finance minister and World Bank economist who has the support of world powers including the United States.

A senior Palestinian official said the US government has indicated it will resume aid once the new cabinet takes office, but a State Department spokeswoman in Washington said no decision had been made.

The so-called Quartet of international mediators for Middle East peace — the United States, European Union, United Nations and Russia — have offered their "full support" to Abbas.

Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat, in an interview with CNN, said he was saddened by the Hamas ransacking of the Palestinian president's Gaza City residence and trampling of portraits of the late leader Yasser Arafat.

"I cried. I felt so sorry. I felt helpless. I felt this was the — you know, I said to my mind that I was happy that Arafat died before he saw this. And it was a very painful experience," he said.

Copyright © 2007 AFP