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Hamas sweeps Gaza
14/06/2007 22:49 - (SA)
Gaza - As Islamist gunmen mopped up his
routed forces in Gaza, Western-backed President Mahmoud Abbas
dismissed the Palestinian government on Thursday and declared a
state of emergency after six days of bloody faction fighting.
But as the United States rallied support for Abbas, Hamas
fighters stormed remaining strongholds of his secular Fatah
group in the Gaza Strip, leaving the presidential compound the
last bastion of Abbas's authority in the enclave.
The violence has ripped apart Palestinian hopes for a state.
Hamas said Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, of
Hamas, would ignore his dismissal decreed by Abbas in the West
Bank. Jubilant Hamas men hunted down Fatah loyalists in Gaza,
killing some and parading one top militant's mutilated body
through the streets.
Abbas said in a statement he was "declaring a state of
emergency in all the lands of the Palestinian Authority because
of the criminal war in the Gaza Strip ... and military coup". Emergency cabinet Medics said at least another 30 people were killed during
the day, taking the death toll since Saturday to over 110 in a
civil war that has ripped apart Palestinians' hopes for a state
and leaves an aggressive Islamist entity on Israel's borders.
Abbas - who embraced negotiation with Israel to try to found a Palestinian state in
Gaza and the West Bank - said he would form an emergency cabinet
to rule by decree and held out the prospect of early elections.
But gun law, not the constitution, held sway in Gaza.
Casualty figures are unclear, as was the fate of Fatah
fighters seen led away, bare-chested, after surrendering. There
were unconfirmed reports of prisoners being shot.
A Fatah official in Gaza said he had seen eight colleagues
gunned down while he escaped death "by a miracle".
For Hamas fighters, some in camouflage uniforms, the fall of
the security headquarters was a cause for celebration. They
fired gunshots in the air to seal their victory and handed out
chocolates to local people in the coastal enclave.
"Allahu akbar!" (God is Greatest) one chanted through a
megaphone from the roof of the beachfront headquarters of
Fatah's intelligence service, captured later in the day.
- Reuters
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