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| Israel-Palestine-Jordan |
| Hamas suspends talks with Fatah |
| 2007-01-27 |
| HAMAS, which heads the Palestinian government, has suspended talks overnight with Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah party after clashes between the two left 11 people dead in barely 24 hours. "Hamas has decided to freeze national dialogue with Fatah to condemn the deadly clashes and the crimes committed against its members," spokesman Ismail Radwan said, a year to the day after Hamas won a resounding election victory. Fatah was swift to react. "This announcement does not surprise us. Hamas does not want a government of national unity. It's not possible to have a dialogue with killers," said Maher Maqdad, the Fatah spokesman in Gaza. A loyalist from Fatah, four Hamas members, a teenager, a toddler and two others were killed in the volatile coastal strip yesterday. A further two Hamas supporters died of wounds received in an attack on Thursday night, medics said. An anti-tank rocket was fired yesterday at the house in Gaza of Palestinian Hamas foreign minister Mahmoud Zahar. Zahar was not at home and no one was hurt but the house was damaged, said a source in an interior ministry force loyal to Hamas. Fatah and Hamas had on Tuesday begun a new round of negotiations on forming a unity government acceptable to Western donors, just two days after Abbas held talks in Syria with exiled Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal. Tensions had flared between the rival factions after Abbas, the head of the Palestinian Authority, had called on December 16, 2006, for early elections. Hamas, which won a resounding election victory exactly one year ago and has struggled to govern since then in the face of international isolation, denounced the call as a "coup d'etat". Subsequent clashes between Fatah and Hamas supporters killed more than 30 people between mid-December and early January. But the two-week lull that followed revived hopes of a deal to form a unity government that could overcome the political and financial impasse that has paralysed the Palestinian Authority for months. In addition to the deaths overnight, nine members of Hamas and five members of Fatah were kidnapped in tit-for-tat abductions in Gaza and the occupied West Bank, and nine Hamas members were kidnapped in the northern village of Kafr Qalil by Fatah, security sources said. The European Union, the United States and Israel consider Hamas a "terrorist" organisation. They are demanding that the Islamists renounce violence and recognise Israel and past peace deals before they resume the aid flow. But Hamas has steadfastly refused to do so. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #1 less jaw-jaw. Get on with the killing |
| Posted by: Frank G 2007-01-27 08:05 |