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Journalism of Courage
Hamas and Fatah gunmen exchanged fire today as the long-dominant Palestinian faction was threatened with a violent backlash to its crushing election defeat by the Islamic militant group.
In the first armed clash since Wednesday’s vote, three people were wounded near the southern city of Khan Younis. The violence erupted after Hamas militants were angered by a sermon by a Fatah-appointed Muslim preacher during Friday prayers.
Hamas said it would hold talks soon with President Mahmoud Abbas on “political partnership”. But Fatah has rejected a coalition. Thousands of Fatah supporters, including gunmen firing into the air, marched in Gaza Strip today in protest. Thousands of Hamas backers celebrated their victory in separate rallies.
The militant al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, part of Fatah, issued a statement threatening to ‘‘liquidate’’ the faction’s leaders if they joined a Hamas-led administration.
Acknowledging Hamas’s new standing as a political powerhouse, Abbas told reporters: ‘‘We are in contact with all the Palestinian groups and definitely, at the appropriate time, the biggest party will form the cabinet.’’ Hamas’s capture of 76 seats in the 132-member parliament against 43 for Fatah was widely seen as a political earthquake in the Middle East.
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Key Hamas leaders
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KHALED MESHAAL: Hamas politburo chief, survived Israeli attempt to kill him by injecting him with a drug in botched daylight attack in an Amman street in 1997. The enraged King of Jordan, late King Hussein, threatened to execute the captured Israelis unless they handed over the antidote. Embarrassed Israeli government ended up releasing Hamas co-founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin. Meshaal had telephoned Abbas to discuss a possible partnership between Hamas and Fatah in the upcoming government — a call Abbas resisted. |
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