Gunmen from Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah movement today announced the formation of a 2,000-strong militia designed to counter new police forces loyal to the Islamist Hamas government.Eighty men drafted from disparate Fatah cells jumped over burning tyres and performed other drills in the Gaza Strip, where internal tensions have mounted since Israeli forces and settlers withdrew last year.Interior Minister Saeed Seyam, a senior Hamas official, last week mobilised 3,000 new paramilitary police in what he called a move to crush lawlessness and oust Palestinian squatters from evacuated Jewish settlements. But some in Fatah suspected the move aimed to consolidate Hamas’s power and control over dwindling Palestinian resources.“We formed the new force in a challenge to the force Hamas had formed and which we regard as illegal,” said Al Mua’tasem Billah, a spokesman for the new Fatah militia. ‘‘We do not wish to clash (with Hamas-led police), but if it happens, we will not stand handcuffed,’’ he said.He accused Hamas of sponsoring some armed groups that have set up camp on farmland largely disused since Israel uprooted 21 settlements in coastal Gaza. ‘‘If they (Hamas) are serious about restoring law and order, let them dismantle their training camps and leave the liberated land and all the others will follow,’’ Billah said.Olmert CabinetJERUSALEM: Ehud Olmert will be confirmed as Israeli PM on Thursday, allowing him to work towards fulfilling his pledge to redraw the country’s borders as head of a four-party coalition government.He will present Parliament with a coalition led by his Centrist Kadima and then outline the mainlines of his new government before chairman of the Likud Party Benjamin Netanyahu addresses the plenum as leader of the parliamentary Opposition bloc. — AFP
