Hamas offers amnesty, just like George Bush!
Tommy Junner
Hamas gives amnesty; killings persist
By SARAH EL DEEB, Associated Press Writer
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - Cheering Hamas supporters wearing green
headbands and waving flags surged through Gaza's streets Friday as
Islamic militants in black masks took over one of President Mahmoud
Abbas' offices and rifled through his bedroom.
Hamas offered amnesty to its defeated foes as violence tapered off
from five days of bloodshed that claimed more than 90 lives. But
Fatah leader Abbas made the split complete by firing the Hamas prime
minister, leaving Palestinians struggling to adjust to a new political
reality that has crushed their long-standing hopes for their own
state.
Safe in the West Bank, Abbas moved quickly to cement his rule
there after losing control of Gaza to Hamas forces. He replaced Prime
Minister Ismail Haniyeh, a Hamas member, with Finance Minister Salam
Fayyad, a respected economist, to head a new moderate government.
Hamas, overwhelmingly elected in a 2006 parliament vote, denounced
Abbas' move as a coup. Hamas' supreme leader, Syrian-based Khaled
Mashaal, later said Abbas has legitimacy as an elected president and
promised to cooperate, but warned Fatah against going after Hamas
loyalists in the West Bank.
But Fatah gunmen and security forces allied with Abbas in the West
Bank were prowling that territory looking for Hamas supporters and
wrecking a Hamas radio station.
The sparring made little difference on the ground: The two Palestinian
territories, on either side of Israel, are now separate
entities with two governments — one run by Hamas and backed by radical
Islamic states, and the other controlled by the Western-supported
Fatah.
Abbas received immediate pledges of support from Israel, the U.S.,
Egypt, Jordan, the U.N. and Saudi Arabia.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told Egyptian President
Hosni Mubarak by phone that he would take steps to bolster Abbas.
Officials in Olmert's office said he would consider releasing hundreds
of millions of dollars in tax receipts frozen after Hamas came to
power.
Though the moderate government that Abbas plans to appoint will have
no say in Gaza, it stands a stronger chance than the Hamas-Fatah
coalition it replaces of restoring foreign aid to the West Bank.
The yearlong aid embargo imposed after the Hamas election victory has
crippled the Palestinian economy, and many Gazans feared they would
become even more isolated and impoverished.
In a West Bank hotel, several Fatah loyalists who fled Gaza sat in the
lobby chain-smoking and worked the phones to set up new lives, hearing
from relatives in Gaza that their homes had been searched.
In Gaza City, a government worker who ran the operations room in the
main police compound, called his old office and pleaded with the new
Hamas rulers to care for the computers. He gave only his first name,
Hani, because he feared for his safety despite Hamas' amnesty offer.
Several thousand Hamas supporters in Gaza cheered as a small armored
personnel carrier seized from Abbas' forces rolled into the
Palestinian legislature compound, where a victory march was held.
A jubilant crowd chanted slogans and waved green Hamas flags as gunmen
fired in the air. Many wore green hats and headbands. Excited children
climbed over the vehicle, and bearded armed men strutted around the
parliamentary building, grinning from ear to ear.
Hamas was both cocky and conciliatory.
It released nine senior Fatah leaders and many lower-ranking
activists, saying it was granting amnesty to its rivals. Hamas
spokesman Abu Obeideh also promised to get BBC journalist Alan
Johnston, held since March, released quickly. He said Hamas has made
contact with the captors and is taking "serious and practical steps"
to win his release.
Yet Hamas gunmen also entered the seaside compound used by Abbas on
visits to Gaza, rifling through the president's belongings in his
bedroom, next to his office. They lifted the mattress and searched
drawers.
One gunman sat at the desk of the Fatah leader, who is also known as
Abu Mazen, picked up the phone and pretended to call Secretary of
State Condoleezza Rice. "Hello, Rice?" the gunman said. "Here
we are in Abu Mazen's office. Say hello to Abu Mazen for me."
Gaza's streets, deserted during the fighting, were crowded with cars,
pedestrians and triumphant Hamas fighters, some driving in jeeps and
firing in the air.
Haniyeh, the prime minister fired by Abbas, promised to restore
security to the anarchic territory. He urged Gazans to display
"self-restraint" and end the widespread looting of houses and other
property of Fatah officials.
Looters stripped the home of Fatah strongman Mohammed Dahlan of
everything from windows and doors to flowerpots. "This was the house
of the murderer Dahlan that was cleansed by the holy warriors," read
graffiti sprayed on the wall.
Donkey carts outside the house waited to take more loot. Dahlan was in
Egypt when the fighting erupted, and reached the West Bank on
Thursday.
Gaza City's Shifa Hospital was still grappling with battle casualties.
More than 90 people were killed in the fighting and dozens wounded.
The morgue was overflowing, with four bodies lined up on the floor,
and some of the wounded were sleeping on cardboard on the floor.
Two men were killed in revenge slayings Friday, including a Fatah
gunman thrown from a roof in what Hamas described as a family
grievance — the gunman, they said, had killed a member of a
Hamas-allied family. Another Fatah loyalist was shot dead in southern
Gaza.
Since Hamas' victory late Thursday, about a dozen Fatah gunmen had
been killed in gangland-style executions, Fatah said.
Before word came of Hamas' amnesty offer, 97 Fatah officials fled in a
fishing boat to Egypt. Others reached Israel via the Erez crossing and
headed to the West Bank.
An Egyptian security delegation left Gaza after failing in its
mediation efforts between the warring Palestinian factions.
Both the United Nations and the European Union
reiterated support Friday for Abbas. Arab League foreign ministers
also threw their support behind Abbas, but urged an immediate halt to
infighting so that the unity of Palestinian lands can be preserved.
Hamas' military takeover of Gaza formalized the separation between
Gaza and the West Bank, and was a major setback to dreams of
Palestinian statehood.
With a larger middle class, more foreign passport holders and more
contact with the outside world, many West Bank residents have long
felt they have little in common with Gaza.
"I expect to have economic development here and poverty there in
Gaza," Salah Haniyeh, a government employee, said as he watched masked
Fatah gunmen parading in pickup trucks through the West Bank city of
Ramallah.
Across the West Bank, Fatah gunmen backed by Abbas-allied security
forces expanded an anti-Hamas sweep. Dozens of Hamas supporters had
been seized by gunmen or arrested by police since Thursday.
In the city of Nablus, a Hamas stronghold, Fatah gunmen set up
checkpoints and barred access to the Hamas-run municipal building.
Gunmen also vandalized a Hamas media office in Nablus, trashing
computers and furniture.
"We will go after them (Hamas) everywhere," said Mouin Hijazi, a
Nablus leader of the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, a violent Fatah
offshoot. "We won't allow them to continue existing in the West Bank."
In Gaza, an immediate concern was how long the coastal strip would be
sealed. Gaza's main passenger and cargo crossings, with Egypt and
Israel, were closed this week, and it was not clear when they would
reopen. Extended closure could quickly lead to a humanitarian crisis.
A Hamas spokesman said Palestinian police, now under Hamas command,
would take up positions at the crossings, but it was unlikely Israel
would agree to such a deployment because Hamas militants frequently
attacked the passages in the past.
John Ging, head of U.N. aid operations in Gaza, said his agency would
resume work Saturday. The U.N. Relief and Works Agency provides
emergency food rations and health care to hundreds of thousands of
Gazans. He called for a quick reopening of the Gaza crossings.