Word: gaza
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Just a week ago, the main Palestinian political parties, Fatah and Hamas, were talking about forging a national unity government. Now, their supporters are fighting each other in running street battles in the West Bank and Gaza, in what may be the opening salvos in a Palestinian civil...
...recognize the Jewish State. Abbas had hardly spoken the words before they were denied by a Hamas spokesman. A furious Abbas accused the Islamists of reneging on a deal, and also of sabotaging an Egyptian-brokered prisoner exchange that would return the Israeli soldier kidnapped on June 25 in Gaza and free nearly 1,000 Palestinians held in Israeli jails...
...Soon, the political quarreling spilled onto Gaza's mean streets. Palestinians close to Abbas say that Fatah wanted to hobble the democratically elected Hamas government by a series of strikes by government workers (many of whom are loyal to Fatah) demanding that a penniless Hamas government somehow pay their wages. With U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice touring the Middle East this week, Abbas was also anxious to show the unpopularity of the Hamas government, as a prelude to dissolving Haniyeh's cabinet, sources close to the president told TIME...
...according to senior Fatah officials, Abbas went a step further: on Sunday thousands of armed, pro-Fatah policemen in Gaza were ordered to go on strike. When marauding police set fire to a bank, the interior minister assembled 3,000 Hamas militants to break up the strike. Gun battles ensued for the next three days inside the Gaza strip and in the West Bank. Eleven Palestinians were killed and another 150 were wounded, hospital workers...
...Arab governments that the only victor in a fight between them would be their common foe, Israel. One miltia linked to Abbas, the al-Aksa Martyr's Brigade, has vowed to start assassinating Hamas leaders in Palestine and abroad. Israelis military officials are also alarmed by the chaos in Gaza; they fear that, inevitably, a civil war among Palestinians will flood over into Israel...