World

Factional Fighting Marks Hamas Anniversary

January 26, 2007 / 5:06 PM EST / CBS/AP

Thousands of Palestinians rallied in Gaza to celebrate the election victory that brought Hamas to power a year ago.

But underscoring a year of turbulent rule, there were more bloody clashes between gunmen from Hamas and the rival Fatah faction, reports .

Meanwhile, a spokesman for the moderate Fatah Party said his group was suspending coalition talks with the rival Hamas movement to protest a flare-up in factional fighting.

In the year since Hamas was elected, it has been crippled by international sanctions, Palestinians have sunken deeper into poverty, and it is on the verge of civil war with the rival Fatah faction.

Hamas seems to have a firm grip on power, however.

"You see opinion polls and you get the sense that the Palestinian public has not turned on Hamas," said Israeli analyst David Horowitz. Moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is too weak to confront Hamas by disbanding the government or holding early elections.

In other developments:

Gunmen from Hamas attacked the home of a militant from the rival faction in Gaza, reports Berger. As the wounded militant was rushed to a hospital, Hamas gunmen stopped the car and executed him with a shot to the head. The attack came hours after a roadside bomb was detonated as Hamas militiamen drove by.

A Palestinian cleric deported from the U.S. insisted Friday he never had ties

(AP)

to a radical Islamic group and says he has reformed since delivering fiery speeches advocating terror and denouncing Jews. Fawaz Damra (left), 46, the former spiritual leader of Ohio's largest mosque, was released Thursday by Israel, which had imprisoned him for three weeks. "I was never a terrorist," Damra said from his parents' home in the West Bank town of Nablus on Friday. "I was always a man of peace who wanted to speak to people of other faiths and hear what they had to say."

Thousands of Israelis, some citing fear of Palestinian terror attacks, others saying they are in danger of spousal abuse, have requested asylum in Canada and hundreds have so far been granted refugee status there, Israel's two mass-circulation dailies reported Friday. One of the papers quoted Israeli ambassador to Canada Alan Baker as telling Canadian officials they were being duped by spurious applications from Israelis. "They are harming Israel's image and representing it as a country whose citizens are persecuted," Baker's letter was quoted as saying.

Lawyers for Israeli President Moshe Katsav will have the opportunity to present his side of the story in a hearing before the attorney general, reports Berger. Katsav, born in Iran, is on a leave of absence because of rape allegations. His attorneys say they need two months to prepare their arguments. After the hearing, the attorney general will make a final decision on whether to charge Katsav with rape. Katsav claims he's innocent, and has accused the police and media of conducting a witch hunt. He says he'll fight to the end to clear his name.

"Fatah will not go to dialogue with killers," said Maher Mekdad, Fatah's spokesman in the Gaza Strip.

However, a top Fatah negotiator said he had not been informed of any decision to suspend the talks aimed at establishing a national unity government that could help end international sanctions against the Hamas-led Palestinian government.

Ibrahim Abu Naja, who heads Fatah's delegation to the talks, said "there are fears over the dialogue" but that he expected contacts to resume on Sunday.

Hamas' celebrations were dramatically scaled back after the new outbreak of deadly factional violence.

It had originally announced that rallies would be held across the West Bank and Gaza, with the main event to take place in Gaza City, Hamas' stronghold.

But a deadly attack on a group of Hamas militiamen in northern Gaza on Thursday night, and retaliation that spilled over into Friday, led organizers to relocate the main rally to the Jebaliya refugee camp, where the initial violence erupted.

(AP)

The tensions were so high that Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas (left) bowed out of a planned appearance at the rally, apparently fearing it would be too dangerous to travel there. In the end, only several thousand Hamas supporters gathered in Jebaliya to celebrate Hamas' ascent to power.

Hamas swept the January 2006 parliamentary elections, ending four decades of Fatah rule. But since taking power, the Hamas-led Palestinian government has been ostracized by governments around in the world, the Palestinians have sunken deeper into poverty and hundreds have died in clashes with Israel and each other.

The international community has called on Hamas, which is sworn to Israel's destruction, to renounce violence and recognize the Jewish state's right to exist. Hamas has refused to soften its line.

Marking the anniversary in a speech in Gaza City, Haniyeh said it has been a "year full of events" and spoke proudly of the Palestinians' refusal to succumb to the international boycott.

"The siege has become ineffective," he proclaimed. "The Palestinian people were patient and steadfast in the face of this siege, as was their government, and we have not offered any concessions."

Despite hardship caused by the boycott, Hamas remains popular with the Palestinian public and is in no immediate danger of being ousted.

Moderate Palestinian president Abbas has urged Hamas to accept the international demands to end the sanctions but is reluctant to force a showdown. He has threatened to call early elections, but has not yet set a date for the vote and said he would prefer to form a coalition government with Hamas.

Abbas, who wants to restart peace talks with Israel, has been trying for months to form a more moderate Fatah-Hamas coalition, hoping that would persuade the West to lift its sanctions. So far, the talks have not produced an agreement.

In his speech Friday, Haniyeh pronounced his government committed to pursuing the coalition talks that would end the boycott and the infighting. The failure to form a coalition has exploded into clashes in Gaza, killing more than 40 people since early December.