Is this it?

[Fabregas]

habashida yuhuda( Falasha) aya ku jirtay dagaalki Lebanon. kuwas saafka hore baa la galiyaa!

[Taliban]

Originally posted by Geel_Jire12:

Taliban, what? 720 i.c.u mujahideens in Lebanon?

That's not an allegation, claim or blatant lie. That truth was reported and certified by many world-class organizations, such as the United Nations.

[Zafir]

Now the tide may be turning against the Israel-US axis, with a senior UN official challenging Israel and others to have the courage of the Palestinians to compromise.But Israel would continue to reject anything related to Hamas, even a reconciled Palestinian leadership, since that could make Israel accept the return of Palestinian refugees to their homeland and their right to legitimate self-defence.

 

Geeljire, wajigaaga la imaba tusikaroba adiga.

[Fabregas]

Zafir, kumaan fahmin ee bal ku u celi mar kale!

 

Taliban, i remember somebody was saying they don't trust U.N regarding Darfur etc,,,i think it might have been a Afghan kid on Sol!

 

The claim was made by a few men in Nairobi. The made that allegation in prepration for the invasion of Somalia. In any case, Hezbollah military is exclusively Shia!

[RedSea]

The whole Muslim world is under siege, add Somalia to the list, the day the Nazra of Allah comes will be the day that Muslims will prevail over evil, since we dont' when that will be, we shall continue the struggle.

 

Isreali is the sore thumb in the middle east, as long as they exist there, there will be no peace, they are the disease.

[N.O.R.F]

Arab summit attempts to revive peace plan

 

 

Staff and agencies

Wednesday March 28, 2007

Guardian Unlimited

 

 

A summit of Arab nations opened in Riyadh today to consider an ambitious Middle East peace plan offering Israel recognition and security in return for its withdrawal to pre-1967 borders.

The initiative - the centrepiece of the Arab League's 19th summit - is being heavily pushed by the hosts, Saudi Arabia. It was rejected by Israel when first put forward in 2002.

 

The plan has generated hope of a possible breakthrough despite Israeli wariness over the extent of the proposed withdrawal and concerns over Palestinian refugees returning to their former homes.

 

The EU foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, who is also in Riyadh, gave the bloc's backing to the efforts and today said he was optimistic.

 

"We expect that something can be achieved now, not only because of Saudi involvement but because of broader developments in the region," he said, describing current events as a rare "window of opportunity".

 

Speaking last night, the Saudi foreign minister, Saud al-Faisal, said it was up to Israel to accept the plans. "If Israel refuses, that means it doesn't want peace," he said.

 

The initiative - first drawn up at a summit in 2002 - offers Israel recognition and permanent peace with all Arab countries in return for its withdrawal from lands captured in the 1967 Middle East war.

 

It also calls for the setting up of a Palestinian state, with east Jerusalem as its capital, and a "just solution" to the issue of Palestinian refugees forced from lands in what is now Israel.

 

Israel turned down the plan in 2002, but the prime minister, Ehud Olmert, last week said it was willing to accept it with some changes - particularly if demands on Palestinian refugees were watered down.

 

Israel rejects a full withdrawal from the West Bank and east Jerusalem, and strongly opposes a possible influx of large numbers of Palestinian refugees.

 

The new peace deal deliberately avoids a specific mention of "right of return" for the refugees. Today, the Palestinian prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh, said this point should not be negotiable.

 

"I expect the Arab summit meeting in Riyadh to reiterate the Arab countries' commitment not to compromise in any way on the Palestinian refugees' right of return under any circumstances," he told Reuters.

 

The peace initiative comes at a time of frantic period of diplomatic activity in the region.

 

Both Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary general, and the US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, have visited in recent days, with the latter persuading the Israeli and Palestinian leaders to hold regular meetings.

 

The two-day summit will create working groups to promote the offer in talks with the US, UN and Europe, as well as possibly Israel.

 

Much appears to depend on the make-up of the groups. Some have spoken of restricting membership to Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates.

 

However, Syria - which has opposed changing the peace initiative - could also seek to join in, fearing it will be sidelined by the moderates.

 

King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia met the Syrian president, Bashar Assad, yesterday - their first meeting since last summer's Israel-Hizbullah war in Lebanon.

 

The Saudi monarch is a supporter of Lebanon's anti-Syrian prime minister, Fouad Siniora, while Mr Assad backs the country's president, Emile Lahoud, and Hizbullah.

 

The Arab unity is also broken by the Libyan leader, Muammar Gadafy , who is boycotting the talks. "The summit would betray the Palestinians due to weakness before the "American empire", he told al-Jazeera television.

 

source

[N.O.R.F]

Now is the time to call the bluff of the land of missed opportunities

 

 

The Arab League should bypass Ehud Olmert and go directly to the Israeli people with its offer for a Palestinian settlement

 

Jonathan Freedland

Wednesday March 28, 2007

The Guardian

 

 

Call it peace process envy. If they have any sense, Israelis and Palestinians will have a bad case of it this week, as they eye with jealousy the photographs flashed around the world from Belfast. How they must pine for the luck of the Northern Irish, as they gaze at Gerry Adams and Ian Paisley sitting side by side, promising their war is over and vowing to govern their bruised land together. How the people of Tel Aviv and Ramallah must wish their leaders would show some of that same Belfast determination which, after a long, torturous decade, has finally wound up what once seemed an intractable conflict. Instead, Israel and Palestine watch months turn into years without progress.

 

Now there is a chance to break the deadlock. The 22 member nations of the Arab League are meeting for two days in Riyadh, with the Arab-Israeli conflict high on their agenda. They are preparing to make a remarkable offer: if Israel withdraws to its 1967 borders, pulling out of the West Bank and Gaza, they will agree to a full and comprehensive peace, including normal relations, between the entire Arab world and Israel.

 

This, in case anyone has forgotten, is what Israel says it has yearned for since its creation 59 years ago, the acceptance of a Jewish state in the Middle East by its neighbours. What's more, Israel has always feared that a separate accord with the Palestinians would not hold because the Palestinians would be too weak to make historic compromises - on, say, the holy sites of Jerusalem - alone. An accord with 22 Arab nations would remove all such worries. Any final settlement between Israel and the Palestinians would be underpinned, with the leading Muslim states giving their blessing to the concessions that would be required. And they would promise what Yasser Arafat never could: that the conflict was truly, finally, over.

 

How could Israel pass up such a great opportunity? The answer is that it already has. The Arab League approved what began as the Saudi peace plan when it met in Beirut back in 2002. Among the signatories then were Libya's Muammar Gadafy and Saddam Hussein of Iraq. That's right: Saddam Hussein was ready to recognise the Jewish state.

 

Nevertheless, Israel's then prime minister, Ariel Sharon, ignored the Beirut declaration, pretending it had never happened. Admittedly he was handed a gilt-edged excuse. The Arab League initiative came when the second intifada was at its bloodiest; indeed, the Beirut text was issued hours before a Palestinian suicide bomber killed 29 Israeli civilians gathered at a hotel to mark the Passover festival. Sharon was less interested in peace with Saddam than he was in rooting out Palestinian fighters in Jenin, and so the moment passed. An Israeli cliche is that the Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. In fact it's Israel that keeps missing opportunities - with the Beirut offer of 2002 the stand-out example.

 

This week it's getting a second chance. That's not because the Arab states are undergoing a spasm of peace, love and flowers in their hair. It's all about hardball regional politics. A cluster of Sunni, self-defined "moderate" states are alarmed by the rise of Iran, whose aspiration to lead the Muslim world, to be a regional superpower and to acquire the bomb, terrifies Riyadh, Cairo and Amman as much as it scares Washington and Jerusalem.

 

In their bid to block the feared Shia ascendancy, action on the Israel-Palestine conflict helps. First, any progress on the Palestinian issue would deny Iran and, just as importantly, the Islamist radicals in the moderates' own countries - whose support is high and growing - one of their key recruitment weapons. The moderate regimes would show they too can act for the Palestinians. While they're at it, they hope a conciliatory stance on Israel will win US favour, necessary if they are to stand firm against the Shia "arc of extremism" they all fear.

 

So much for the Arab states' motive. Will Israel seize this chance, whatever its origins? The prime minister, Ehud Olmert, has hinted that there are "positive elements" in it worth pursuing. That's certainly true for him personally. Olmert currently commands what may be the lowest approval rating for any democratic leader in world history: a measly 2%. Mired in corruption scandals and about to face the verdict of a commission of inquiry into the debacle of last summer's war in Lebanon, Olmert finds his premiership stalled and in a ditch. "He needs an initiative and this could be it," says one Israeli government official of the Saudi plan.

 

He would have ample political cover if he gave Riyadh a positive response. His rivals, including former PM, Bibi Netanyahu, have spoken approvingly of the Saudi opening. At the weekend, a clutch of eminent Israelis, including former minsters and security officials, joined a similar group of Palestinians in calling for an embrace of the Arab initiative.

 

Still, only a reckless optimist would be hopeful. For one thing, Israel retains major objections to the initiative as it currently stands. They don't want to give back all of the post-1967 territories, preferring negotiations, and maybe even a land swap, to arrive at final borders.

 

The key obstacle, though, relates to the Palestinian refugees displaced by Israel's creation in 1948 and their descendants. The initial Saudi plan, first floated six years ago, spoke only of a "just solution" to the refugee problem. At Beirut the language hardened up, to include a demand that Palestinians have the right to return to their homes inside Israel. Israel insists that any such right would be impossible to implement, spelling the demographic end of the country as a Jewish national home: Palestinians should instead return to the proposed Palestinian state on the West Bank and Gaza. If Riyadh sees no return to the original language, Israel will refuse to engage with it.

 

Above all, Olmert may just be too weak to act, even in response to the initiative of others. Any progress would eventually require concessions and he is in no position to make them.

 

There is, however, something that can be done. Normally, in the Israel-Palestine conflict, it makes sense to call on Israel, as the stronger party, to make the first move. But in this wider conflict, between Israel and the entire Arab world, that same logic may not apply. There is, in fact, something the Arab world could do this very week. It was raised in an open letter written by Shlomo Gazit, the former head of Israeli military intelligence, and addressed to the Saudi regime. The former general called on the Saudis to bypass Olmert, appealing over his head to the Israeli people directly. Follow the path taken by Anwar Sadat of Egypt 30 years ago, Gazit urged: come to Jerusalem and call for immediate negotiations. Public opinion will rally and "no government in Israel will be able to reject that kind of initiative," he wrote.

 

It's a good idea, for it would call Israel's bluff. The country always says it wants peace; now the sincerity of that stance would be tested. If the language on refugees and borders were loosened, thereby denying Olmert a reason to say no, all the better. The current prime minister has made the mistake Ariel Sharon never did: he has lost the initiative. This would be a way for the Arabs to fill the vacuum, with a stunningly dramatic gesture. And if there's one lesson the world can learn from Northern Ireland, it's that a little bit of human drama and symbolism goes a long way.

 

CiF

[N.O.R.F]

A civil war is sadly nearing in Gaza

 

Fatah suspends role in government

 

Fatah says it is suspending participation in the three-month old unity government until street battles in Gaza end.

 

The announcement on Tuesday night came at the end of one of the bloodiest days of factional fighting in the Gaza Strip.

 

The toll in the past 24 hours reached 27, with scores wounded.

 

Earlier in the day, fighters from the armed wing of Hamas had stormed two compounds belonging to forces loyal to the Palestinian president.

 

The raids came after the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades demanded that all Preventive Security Forces abandon their positions or face attack.

 

Mahmoud Abbas, the president, said that the violence was part of a Hamas-led coup attempt.

 

After the closed-doors meeting, Fatah's central committee said in a statement: "The committee has decided that [Fatah] ministers will no longer participate in the government if the shooting does not stop."

 

Ismail Haniya, the prime minister and Hamas member, said a state of emergency should be declared and that talks between the two factions should resume.

 

In Israel, Ehud Olmert, the Israeli prime minister, said an international force should be deployed along the Gaza-Egypt border.

 

Abbas's office said in a statement: "All information and events on the ground in Gaza confirm that there is a group in the Hamas movement, including political and military leaders, that are planning to carry out a coup against the Palestinian legitimacy.

 

"The Palestinian presidency is worried about this plot ... which is pushing the homeland into an ugly civil war."

 

Nour Odeh, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Gaza, said: "For the president to make such a declaration does signal a new chapter in this Hamas-Fatah violence.

 

"The situation does not seem to be reaching a solution, it seems to be heading further and further away from political dialogue."

 

Haniya's home struck

 

A rocket-propelled grenade was fired into the Palestinian prime minister's house on Tuesday morning. Haniya, who is a member of the Hamas movement, was unharmed.

 

Fawzi Barhoum, a Hamas spokesman, accused Fatah of firing the rocket in an attempt to assassinate Haniya and vowed punishment "without mercy" of the perpetrators.

 

"Hamas has decided to punish the attackers and the killers and it will not be reluctant to punish them without any mercy."

 

It was the second time since Monday that Haniya had come under attack, a shooting at his office on Monday interrupted a cabinet meeting but caused no casualties.

 

Later, an aide to Haniya said that Hamas's rivals were trying to bring down the unity government which was formed in March.

 

"Certain parties, collaborating with parties hostile to our people, have tried to bring down the government of national unity by force," the official said.

 

Witnesses said that a large security compound in Gaza City was attacked just minutes after the Hamas deadline expired. Heavy gunfire and explosions were heard in the area, but there was no immediate word on casualties.

 

A second headquarters in Jabiliya, in the north of the strip, was also besieged.

 

Hamas-affiliated radio stations said fighters had taken control of security installations in northern and central Gaza, as well as the southern town of Khan Yunis.

 

Earlier, the presidential compound in Gaza City also came under attack with mortar shells, an officer in Abbas's presidential guard said.

 

A gun battle broke out between armed supporters of Hamas and Fatah at a hospital in Khan Yunis.

 

Hamas fighters reportedly controlled the roof of the European Hospital and Fatah-allied fighters took up positions nearby.

 

"[Medical officials] are appealing to gunmen from all sides to steer away from medical services, institutions and ambulances and allow them to do their work," Odeh said.

 

The recent clashes have been particularly brutal with reports of fighters dropping rivals to their deaths from high-rise buildings and bodies being mutilated.

 

Officials of both factions have seen their homes attacked and in many cases set on fire.

 

'House for a house'

 

Samih al-Madhoun, a senior figure in the Fatah-linked al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, said after his house was attacked: "If they've burnt my house, I have burnt 20 Hamas houses last night."

 

"A house for a house and blood for blood ... I swear to God that I will kill every member of Hamas, be they civilian or military. I will kill them all," he told a Fatah radio station.

 

The factional fighting spread to the West Bank as Saidi Tamimi, deputy transport minister and a Hamas member, was seized by armed men who stormed into his department and forced him into a vehicle, security officials said.

 

Also in Ramallah, presidential guards stormed Hamas-controlled al-Aqsa Television and seized equipment. Three staff were detained, the station said.

 

The raid came after two television employees were abducted and their station set on fire overnight. Palestine TV blamed Hamas for the raid.

 

Fighters also renewed rocket attacks on southern Israel. Three Israelis in the town of Sderot were lightly injured, an Israeli medic said.

 

Israel launched an air strike into the northern Gaza Strip after the Islamic Jihad group claimed responsibility for the attack.

 

Source: Al Jazeera and agencies

[N.O.R.F]

Secret UN report condemns US for Middle East failures

 

Envoy's damning verdict revealed as violence takes Gaza closer to civil war

 

Rory McCarthy in Jerusalem and Ian Williams in New York

Wednesday June 13, 2007

The Guardian

 

 

The highest ranking UN official in Israel has warned that American pressure has "pummelled into submission" the UN's role as an impartial Middle East negotiator in a damning confidential report.

The 53-page "End of Mission Report" by Alvaro de Soto, the UN's Middle East envoy, obtained by the Guardian, presents a devastating account of failed diplomacy and condemns the sweeping boycott of the Palestinian government. It is dated May 5 this year, just before Mr de Soto stepped down.

 

The revelations from inside the UN come after another day of escalating violence in Gaza, when at least 26 Palestinians were killed after Hamas fighters launched a major assault. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, head of the rival Fatah group, warned he was facing an attempted coup.

 

Mr de Soto condemns Israel for setting unachievable preconditions for talks and the Palestinians for their violence. Western-led peace negotiations have become largely irrelevant, he says.

 

Mr de Soto is a Peruvian diplomat who worked for the UN for 25 years in El Salvador, Cyprus and Western Sahara. He says:

 

· The international boycott of the Palestinians, introduced after Hamas won elections last year, was "at best extremely short-sighted" and had "devastating consequences" for the Palestinian people

 

· Israel has adopted an "essentially rejectionist" stance towards the Palestinians

 

· The Quartet of Middle East negotiators - the US, the EU, Russia and the UN - has become a "side-show"

 

·The Palestinian record of stopping violence against Israel is "patchy at best, reprehensible at worst"

 

Mr de Soto acknowledges in the report that he is its sole author. It was meant only for senior UN officials, and its wording is far more critical than the public pronouncements of UN diplomats. Last night, Mr de Soto, who is in New York, told the Guardian: "It is a confidential document and not intended for publication."

 

In January last year, the Quartet called on the newly elected Hamas government to commit to non-violence, recognise Israel and accept previous agreements. When Hamas refused to sign up to the principles, the international community halted direct funding to the Palestinian government and Israel started to freeze the monthly tax revenues that it had agreed to pass to the Palestinians. Several hundred million dollars remain frozen.

 

Mr de Soto, who had opposed the boycott, said this position "effectively transformed the Quartet from a negotiation-promoting foursome guided by a common document [the road map for peace] into a body that was all-but imposing sanctions on a freely elected government of a people under occupation as well as setting unattainable preconditions for dialogue".

 

The EU said yesterday that there was an imminent risk of civil war if fighting went on, and UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon urged support for Mr Abbas's efforts "to restore law and order".

 

In the heaviest day of fighting in Gaza for months, Hamas appeared to make its first concerted effort to seize power in Gaza. There was a wave of co-ordinated attacks, which appeared to overwhelm the larger but less effective Fatah force. "Decisiveness will be in the field," said Islam Shahwan, a spokesman for the Hamas military wing.

 

Fatah's central committee called an emergency meeting in Ramallah, in the West Bank, and said it would suspend the activities of its ministers in the government. Fatah would pull out of the government if the fighting failed to stop, it said.

 

For the first time in several weeks, fighting spread to the West Bank when Fatah gunmen attacked a Hamas television studio in Ramallah and kidnapped a Hamas deputy cabinet minister from the city.

 

The day began with a rocket attack on the private house in Gaza of Ismail Haniyeh, the prime minister and a Hamas leader. He was in the building but was not hurt. Fighting spread across Gaza City and within hours Hamas fighters issued warnings over loudspeakers calling on all Fatah security forces to pull out of their bases and return home. At about 2pm Hamas gunmen seized control of several small Fatah bases and one large base in northern Gaza, where there were heavy casualties when Hamas fighters fired mortars and rocket-propelled grenades at the compound.

 

Several Fatah officers complained that they had received no orders during the day. Mr Abbas tried calling for a truce, and later Fatah ordered its officers to fight back.

 

guardian.co.uk

 

Read Alvaro de Soto's End of Mission Report

[N.O.R.F]

UN was pummelled into submission, says outgoing Middle East special envoy

 

 

· Negotiators 'lost impartiality' says report

· Palestinians also criticised over violence

 

Rory McCarthy in Jerusalem and Ian Williams in New York

Wednesday June 13, 2007

The Guardian

 

 

American support for Israel has hindered international efforts to broker a peace deal in the Middle East, according to a hard-hitting confidential report from the outgoing UN Middle East envoy.

Alvaro de Soto, who stepped down last month after 25 years at the UN, has exposed the American pressure that he argues has damaged the impartiality of the UN's peace making efforts.

 

In Mr de Soto's "End of Mission Report", which the Guardian has obtained, he delivers a devastating criticism of both Israelis and Palestinians, as well as the international community.

 

The Quartet of Middle East negotiators - the UN, the US, the EU and Russia - has often failed to hold Israel to its obligations under the Road Map, the current framework for peace talks, he argues.

 

Over the past two years, the Quartet has gradually lost its impartiality. "The fact is that even-handedness has been pummelled into submission in an unprecedented way since the beginning of 2007," he writes.

 

He blames overwhelming influence exerted by the US and an "ensuing tendency toward self-censorship" within the UN when it comes to criticism of Israel.

 

"At almost every juncture a premium is put on good relations with the US and improving the UN's relationship with Israel. I have no problem with either goal but I do have a problem with self-delusion," he writes. "Forgetting our ability to influence the Palestinian scene in the hope that it keeps open doors to Israel is to trade our Ace for a Joker."

 

Mr de Soto reveals that after Hamas won elections last year it wanted to form a broad coalition government with its more moderate rivals, including Fatah, run by the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. But the US discouraged other Palestinian politicians from joining. "We were told that the US was against any 'blurring' of the line dividing Hamas from those Palestinian political forces committed to the two-state solution," . Mr de Soto writes. It was a year before a coalition government was finally formed.

 

The US also supported the Israeli decision to freeze Palestinian tax revenues. "The Quartet has been prevented from pronouncing on this because the US, as its representatives have intimated to us, does not wish Israel to transfer these funds to the PA [Palestinian Authority]," he writes. "There is a seeming reflex, in any given situation where the UN is to take a position, to ask first how Israel or Washington will react rather than what is the right position to take."

 

Mr de Soto opposed the international boycott placed on the Palestinian government after Hamas won elections last year. He argued that it was wrong to use pressure and isolation alone, and proposed retaining dialogue with Hamas. He wanted tougher criticism of Israel as well, but came up against a "heavy barrage" from US officials.

 

The effect of the boycott was to seriously damage the Palestinian economy and promote radicalism. It also lifted pressure from Israel. "With all focus on the failings of Hamas, the Israeli settlement enterprise and barrier construction has continued unabated," he writes.

 

The US, he argues, was clearly pushing for a confrontation between Fatah and Hamas but Washington misjudged Mr Abbas, who he argues had wanted to co-opt rather than defeat Hamas. Fighting between Fatah and Hamas has intensified in recent months. He quotes an unnamed US official as saying earlier this year: "I like this violence ... It means that other Palestinians are resisting Hamas." Since December at least 600 Palestinians have been killed in factional battles.

 

The report criticises the Palestinians for their violence, and Israel for extending its settlements and barrier in the West Bank. But he also argues that Israeli policies have encouraged continued Palestinian militancy. "I wonder if the Israeli authorities realise that, season after season, they are reaping what they sow, and are systematically pushing along the violence/repression cycle to the point where it is self-propelling," he writes.

 

Mr de Soto speaks of his frustration in the job, not least that he was refused permission to meet the Hamas and Syrian governments in Damascus. "At best I have been the UN special coordinator for the Middle East peace process in name only, and since the election of Hamas, I have been the secretary-general's personal representative to the Palestinian Authority for about 10 minutes in two phone calls and one handshake," he writes.

 

He stepped down in May at the end of his two-year contract and left the UN. The "tipping-point" for his departure came after the new UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon said future meetings with a Palestinian prime minister would depend on the actions of his government.

 

Michele Montas, spokesperson for Mr Ban, said: "It is deeply regrettable that this report has been leaked. The whole point of an end-of-mission report is for our envoys and special representatives to be as candid as possible ... the views in the report should not be considered official UN policy."

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,2101630,00.html

[N.O.R.F]

Hamas 'tightening grip' on Gaza

 

Heavy fighting is continuing between rival Palestinian factions Hamas and Fatah in Gaza, with reports Hamas now controls almost the whole Gaza Strip.

It comes despite the two sides saying they had agreed to a truce to end days of fighting which has killed 80 people.

 

But Hamas's military wing says it has so far received no orders to put down its guns.

 

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, of Fatah, is to make a statement on the future of the unity government.

 

Sources close to Mr Abbas told the BBC he is deciding whether to change the Palestinian cabinet or dismiss it altogether, thereby ending the three-month-old unity government that was meant to stop the violence.

 

Gun battles

 

Hamas militants are now targeting Fatah's security and political command centres in Gaza City, following a series of battles on Wednesday in which Hamas made important gains in the north and south.

 

Hamas has reportedly taken control of the headquarters of the Fatah-linked Preventive Security force.

 

Another key security headquarters, the National Security building, also came under a barrage of mortar shells overnight.

 

In other parts of the Gaza Strip, Fatah forces blew up key positions rather than surrender them, according to AP news agency.

 

Hamas has issued an ultimatum to Fatah militants in Gaza to lay down their weapons by 1600 GMT on Friday or risk having them taken from them.

 

Truce conditions

 

At least 17 people were reported killed in fighting on Wednesday, with 80 reported to have died since Saturday.

 

Mr Abbas and Prime Minister Ismail Haniya, of Hamas, issued a statement on Wednesday, calling on all sides to halt the fighting.

 

A senior Fatah official told the BBC that it had agreed to a list of conditions from Hamas for a truce, including appointing an interior minister responsible for all Palestinian security forces, and shared control of Gaza's boundaries and borders.

 

Fatah said it had accepted the conditions in principle, but that more dialogue between the two sides was needed.

 

A truce agreed on Monday was quickly broken and fighting escalated across northern Gaza.

 

Fatah and Hamas agreed a unity government in March to bring an end to factional strife and Western sanctions, but it has not stopped the rivalry.

 

Analysts say that if the fighting is not checked, Palestinians could be split into a Fatah-controlled West Bank and Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.

 

The international community has called for a ceasefire, and Arab League head Amr Moussa said the fighting was destroying the Palestinian cause.

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6751079.stm

[Jacaylbaro]

Israel will then invade the Ghaza strip and support the Fatah group ,,,,,,,

[N.O.R.F]

^^Bingo!

[N.O.R.F]

Hamas tightens control on Gaza

 

Fighting has resumed in the Gaza Strip, with Hamas fighters battling forces loyal to Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president and leader of Fatah.

 

Residents said Hamas appeared to be in control of many areas of the territory on Thursday and were surrounding Fatah forces in two of their bases in northern Gaza City.

 

Meanwhile, a Fatah official said Abbas would issue a statement on the future of the unity government between Hamas and Fatah later on Thursday, after crisis talks with representatives from Fatah and the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO).

 

More than 80 people have been killed since Saturday in the worst factional violence since Hamas won a parliamentary election last year.

 

In the centre of the Gaza City on Thursday, Hamas fighters fired mortars at a Fatah compound after the expiry of a deadline to surrender, which had earlier been broadcast on a Hamas radio station.

 

 

 

 

Hamas's trademark green flags were later observed fluttering from the rooftop of the heavily fortified Preventive Security headquarters.

 

 

 

Fatah has denied that the compound has been taken but there are reports that many of those defending the headquarters surrendered after Hamas radio announced guarantees of "safe passage home".

 

 

 

 

Nour Odeh, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Gaza, said there were witness reports of Hamas celebratory gunfire at the headquarters.

 

 

 

"A number of Hamas leaders have been detained by the Preventative Security forces in previous years and this had compounded Hamas fighters' hatred toward those forces," she said.

 

 

 

"This means that Hamas has taken over the first headquarters of the Palestinian Authority security [but] there are at least two compounds – including the presidential compound – that remain in the hands of the Palestinian Authority."

 

 

 

 

Security control

 

 

 

Hospital officials said a Hamas fighter died in his car in the early hours of Thursday morning when it was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade at Rafah, in the south of the crowded territory.

 

 

 

Abbas spoke to Ismail Haniyeh, Palestinian prime minister and Hamas' main leader in Gaza, by telephone late on Wednesday.

 

 

 

Hamas officials said Haniyeh wants full control of Palestinian security forces under the terms of an agreement forged in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, in March.

 

 

 

The Mecca agreement led to Haniyeh bringing members of Fatah into a unity cabinet.

 

 

 

Abbas, officials said, has insisted that Hamas must stop fighting before he will negotiate.

 

Fatah said on Tuesday that it may abandon the unity government, which could let Abbas rule by decree, despite his limited authority in Gaza.

 

Analysts say a Fatah break with Hamas could divide the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the two territories Palestinians want for their state.

 

Source: Al Jazeera and agencies

[Jacaylbaro]

So the civil war has already started ,,,,,,,