Palestinian Leader Blasts Hamas
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, addressing his people on TV Wednesday, harshly criticized Hamas for attacking "national symbols" during its takeover of Gaza last week.
In an uncharacteristically fiery speech, Abbas said Hamas replaced the "national project" with "its project of darkness," attacking the symbols of government in Gaza, including the house of the late leader Yasser Arafat.
Abbas accused Hamas of trying to set up its own state in Gaza, a step he said would scuttle Palestinian hopes for independence. He said he had tried to prevent the conflict through "continuous dialogue." Instead, "we are seeing assassination of leaders in Palestinian security Fatah in Gaza."
Hamas' takeover has further isolated Gazans from the outside world, with Israel sealing its borders after the takeover and many Western governments cutting aide to the territory.
Israel's new defense minister ordered the army on Wednesday to allow into Israel any of the hundreds of Gazans holed up at a fetid crossing who might desperately need medical treatment.
A teenager with leukemia was on his way through shortly after, the military said.
"Refugee agencies and the U.N. Security Council are concerned about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, which is likely to get worse before it gets better, because it is hard to imagine Israel allowing a militant occupation of Gaza, even with the new Fatah government in the West Bank that might serve to represent the Palestinian Authority," said CBS News foreign affairs analyst Pamela Falk from the U.N. on Wednesday.
In a lighting military-style operation, Hamas militias last week routed the numerically superior Fatah security forces and took over their bases, leaving Abbas' Fatah in physical control of only the West Bank, though Israel and the West still recognize Abbas as the president of all Palestinians.
As Gazans clamored for humanitarian relief at Israeli crossings, Israeli aircraft attacked Palestinian rocket launchers in northern Gaza on Wednesday in the first Israeli air strike since Hamas militants seized control of the coastal strip last week, the army said.
There were no immediate reports of casualties.
Aircraft attacked two rocket launchers after one rocket hit near the Israeli town of Sderot, the army said.
Palestinians regularly fire rockets from Gaza into Israel, drawing Israeli retaliation.
Earlier Wednesday, tanks ventured about 600 yards into the southern Gaza Strip before dawn. Four people, including at least two militants, were killed in an exchange of fire, Palestinian hospital officials said.
Troops acting undercover in the village of Karara were discovered by the gunmen who fired at them, prompting the army to send six tanks, two armored personnel carriers and a bulldozer to the area, Hamas and the Palestinian Resistance Committees said.
The army said the entrance of the troops had been planned, was not a broad operation and was meant to counter militant activity, including arms smuggling.
Soon after the Hamas takeover in Gaza, Israeli officials said publicly that they had no intention of entering the strip of land on the Mediterranean coast in large numbers.
In related news, Israel's Supreme Court was hearing a petition Wednesday by a human rights group, demanding that Israeli authorities offer immediate medical treatment to 26 critically ill Palestinians hospitalized in Gaza.
Hamas' seizure of Gaza left many Gazans petrified that chaos and further violence will ensue. Some in the tunnel fear their lives are in danger because of their Fatah loyalties; others seek a better life than volatile Gaza can offer. Among their number are people wounded in gun battles between the rival factions.
With no sanitary facilities at the tunnel, the stench of urine and sweat has permeated the air. Food and water were in short supply as women, children and young men sat waiting on mats or concrete.
The situation at the crossing was expected to be one of the first issues Defense Minister Ehud Barak would tackle after he took over the job on Tuesday. And on Wednesday, Barak instructed officials to let in "humanitarian cases" at the crossing.
No numbers were specified, and specific guidelines for determining urgency were not released. But shortly after the order was issued, a 17-year-old boy with leukemia was on his way through the passage, said Shadi Yassin, a military liaison official.
On Tuesday, Israel allowed in two Palestinians wounded in a shootout at the terminal the previous day. Three other people hospitalized in Gaza in the course of Hamas-Fatah infighting last week also were allowed to pass.
Israel, which has sophisticated weapons screening equipment in place at Erez, says it is letting through only the staff of international organizations, people with special permission and humanitarian cases. Military officials say they don't think all of the people in the tunnel are in danger.
But the humanitarian cases are being processed dangerously slow, the Israeli branch of Physicians for Human Rights contended in a petition before the Israeli Supreme Court.
Ran Yaron, a doctor with the group, told Israel Radio on Wednesday that the lives of 15 of the patients were in danger and the necessary treatment was not available in the Gaza Strip. Among them was an 18-year-old woman with lupus, who was unconscious and on life support. Others, including at least two children, were suffering from cancer or other serious diseases.
"Israel has a responsibility since it closed the ... crossings," Yaron said. "It has the responsibility to find a solution for these patients."
Yassin, the military liaison official, said the takeover deprived Israel of its main contact on humanitarian issues — Fatah-allied Palestinian police.
"In the past, we coordinated with Palestinian police," he said. "Now, we don't have this contact, and are trying in every way to obtain information from the Red Cross about sick people whose transfer to Israel must be coordinated."
In the West Bank, two Palestinian militants were killed early Wednesday after an hours-long shootout with Israeli troops in Kafr Dan, a village near Jenin, residents said. One was a local commander from the Islamic Jihad militant group and the other a local commander from a violent offshoot of Fatah.
Witnesses said about 30 jeeps and a bulldozer entered the village in an arrest raid, and a fierce exchange of fire ensued. The militants were killed and the house in which they were holed up was partly burnt, they said.
The army said armed men opened fire from the house on troops, who shot back, killing two militants.