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LONG LIVE THE PALESTINIAN STRUGGLE FOR LIBERATION!(**)

Yesterday, the entire day, you were able to read such news about Palestine like: "Violent demonstrations took the streets of Gaza", "Rioters attacked Palestinian government buildings", "Demonstrators, security forces killed during demonstrations", "Parliament building set on fire", "PA officers kidnapped", and so on, and so on..

It seems that the Palestinians, especially in the Gaza Strip, know how to make really good parties(or better: know to destroy their own society completely)!

Today's Guardian(UK) reported following about yesterday's "events" in the PA territories:

Eight Palestinians die as Fatah and Hamas fight on streets of Gaza City

· Rivals trade gunfire after protest by unpaid officials
· West Bank cabinet offices aflame as violence spreads

Eight Palestinians were killed and dozens injured yesterday in an increasingly violent struggle for power between rival factions in the Gaza Strip.
Hours after the clashes, gunmen loyal to the Fatah movement set fire to rooms in the Palestinian cabinet building in the West Bank town of Ramallah. It was the most serious outbreak of fighting in the Palestinian territories for some months, and a sign of rising tensions between the Hamas-led government and the more secular Fatah, which lost power in elections at the start of the year.

Among the dead was a boy aged 15. More than 50 people were injured, including three children and a television cameraman. The fighting broke out during a protest in Gaza City led by government employees and security officials, none of whom had received salaries since the government was formed in March.

Most of the security employees were Fatah members, and the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, who leads the movement, had told them not to go out on the demonstration. Mr Abbas said last night that the "bloody confrontations" were unacceptable and he promised to prosecute those involved in the violence.

On Saturday, Hamas began deploying its own, rival militia - the well-armed Executive Force, who dress in camouflage trousers and black shirts - and yesterday they moved in to break up the protests. Gunmen from both sides then began trading fire with rifles and rocket-propelled grenades. Cars were set alight and plumes of thick, black smoke rose over the city.

Later, in apparent retaliation for the shootings, a crowd of Fatah supporters marched through Ramallah and attacked the cabinet building, setting fire to several rooms. Smoke poured from the windows.

A Fatah spokesman, Tawfik Abu Khoussa, blamed the Hamas government. "Nothing can justify this violence," he said. Ghazi Hamad, the main Hamas spokesman, blamed the protesters, accusing them of being driven more by political than economic motives. "The protest today was beyond acceptable legal norms and turned truly into lawlessness," he said.

Even before yesterday's clashes, there had been attacks between the factions, symptomatic of a broader struggle for power and heightening fears of a slide into civil war. Ten days ago, gunmen in Gaza shot dead Jad Tayah, a senior Fatah intelligence official, and five of his colleagues. Several people pointed the finger of blame at Hamas. A few days earlier, gunmen hijacked a car belonging to Nabil Shaath, a senior Palestinian politician and close adviser to Mr Abbas. Security is now becoming a more immediate concern than the economic crisis.

As soon as Hamas came to power, the international community froze its aid payments to the Palestinian government and Israel suspended its customs transfers, which together amount to hundreds of millions of dollars a year. Both insisted that the hardline Islamist movement publicly recognise the state of Israel, renounce violence and sign up to past agreements between the Palestinians and Israel.

Hamas has not agreed, and efforts to form a coalition government with Fatah that might go some way towards meeting those demands have fallen through in recent days. With the salaries of 160,000 government employees unpaid, the economic situation in the territories has worsened severely, particularly in Gaza, where Israeli closures of crossing points have severely hit farmers and businessmen.

Yesterday's violence suggests that a coalition government - which at one point was almost agreed - may now be beyond reach.

In addition to the internal Palestinian rivalry, there has been a series of Israeli military operations in Gaza since the capture in June of a soldier, Corporal Gilad Shalit, by Palestinian militants. Israel says it is acting to get its soldier back and halt the firing of crude Qassam rockets into nearby Israeli towns, such as Sderot. More than 200 Palestinians have died in the operations, most of them civilians.

Yesterday, Israel's chief of staff said a much larger military operation in Gaza was being considered. "We will have to find a military means to reduce the rocket fire on Sderot," Major-General Dan Halutz told Israel Radio. "For example, a more continued and deeper ground action ... We are holding consultations about this."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,1885324,00.html

The Israeli "left-liberal" daily Haaretz wrote this:

Hamas-Fatah battles flare despite appeals for calm 
 
Hamas militiamen withdrew from the streets of the Gaza Strip on Monday and returned to their normal posts after the worst day of internal violence since Hamas took control of the Palestinian government in March.

In the West Bank city of Ramallah, Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah Party enforced a general strike, closing shops and private schools in a show of force against Hamas. For its part, the Hamas-led government ordered all ministries closed to protest Fatah attacks on government buildings.

Fatah militants also released Samir Birawi, a Hamas official in the Finance Ministry they had briefly kidnapped, telling him his abduction was intended to send Hamas a message to end the Gaza violence, Hamas officials said. The Fatah men also burned Birawi's car.
 
 
Gaza, the center of the violence that killed eight people on Sunday, remained tense Monday, and many shops were closed out of fears of renewed attacks.

Despite appeals for calm from Abbas and Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas, militants in Gaza torched the Agricultural Ministry early Monday, and a group of young students in the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanun stoned the house of Hamas minister until his bodyguards chased them away by firing in the air.

Appeals for calm

Abbas on Sunday appealed for calm after gun battles between a Hamas militia and members of the security forces loyal to his Fatah movement left eight dead.

Abbas also said Sunday he was ready renew stalled negotiations with Hamas over a unity government.

"These confrontations have crossed the red line, which we have avoided crossing for four decades," he said in a speech broadcast on Palestine TV.

Abbas condemned the violence "in the strongest terms," and ordered an official investigation into the fighting.

In an interview to the Qatar-based Al Jazeera television station broadcast earlier Sunday, Abbas said was ready to negotiate a unity government with Hamas to avoid crossing the "red line" into Palestinian civil war.

"Personally I believe that a civil war is a red line and I will not allow it under any circumstances," Abbas told Al Jazeera.
 

"I as a president have the right to form or dissolve the government at any time, but I say that we should exert every effort to form a unity government."
 

Haniyeh also urged Palestinians on Sunday to end the internal violence.

Following calls from both Abbas and Haniyeh to stop the violence, The Palestinian Interior Ministry ordered its Hamas-led security force to pull back from some positions in Gaza where they had been deployed to stop the policemen from protesting.

"The force was deployed based on Palestinian security needs," Interior Ministry spokesman Khaled Abu Hilal told reporters.

"But since the president [Abbas] has made a decision calling for the withdrawal of all forces," Abu Hilal added, "the Interior Ministry has to respond and comply with the decision of the president."

"I appeal to all citizens to be responsible and to abandon their differences, especially in the time we are facing an escalation by the occupation forces, who threaten to enlarge their scale of aggression," Haniyeh told reporters.

Haniyeh was referring to earlier comments made by Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Lieutenant-General Dan Halutz, who said Israel could step up military action in the Gaza Strip to halt rocket fire against its southern towns.

Fatah and Hamas have been holding talks on forming a unity government in an effort to end Western sanctions imposed in the wake of Hamas' election victory in January. Hamas has refused calls to recognize Israel, renounce violence and abide by previously signed interim peace accords.
 

"Let us be frank here, the United Stated has imposed a political, economic and social siege on us after Hamas' win," said Abbas.

Haniyeh spoke with Abbas by telephone late Sunday evening and called for joint action to end the violence between their respective parties, as well as the need to return to national unity government talks, Haniyeh's office said in a statement.

"We [Abbas and I] have agreed all parties must abide by the law and that they should not get involved in any kind of behaviour that may lead to the spread of chaos," Haniyeh told reporters in Gaza.

First spark in Khan Yunis

The gun battles broke out in Gaza between militants from Hamas party and security personnel loyal to Abbas, hospital officials said.

The fighting started in the southern Gaza town of Khan Yunis, where dozens of police gathered outside the Bank of Palestine on Sunday morning to demand payment of salaries they have not recieved since Hamas took power in January, protesters said.
 

Abbas, who was in Jordan on Sunday, has been trying to end the crisis by persuading Hamas to form a coalition government and to accept international demands to renounce violence and recognize Israel. Hamas has resisted compromising its radical ideology.

In recent weeks, civil servants - including members of the security forces, many of them Fatah loyalists - held expanding protests against the Hamas-led government to demand their back wages. Hamas has been unable to pay the salaries due to the suspension of aid.
 

On Saturday, the Hamas-led government sent its 3,500-member militia into Gaza's streets to quash the protests.

Hamas set up its militia - which answers to the interior minister - after losing a power struggle with Abbas for control of Palestinian security forces. Since then, violence has sporadically broken out between Hamas' militia and the official police force, but it has never been as widespread as it was Sunday.

The Hamas militiamen attempted to stop demonstrations staged by the unpaid civil servants and security officials. They ordered the protesters to disperse and then opened fire at them, and they in turn responded by shooting in the air, protesters said.
 

Fighting then broke out in northern Gaza, where a late morning gun battle erupted between militia members and security officials.

The violence then spread to the parliament building in Gaza City, where security officers and civil servants were protesting. The protesters threw stones at nearby Hamas militiamen, who responded by hitting them with sticks and then by firing guns and anti-tank rockets and lobbing grenades at the protesters, according to an Associated Press journalist at the scene.

Militiamen and security personnel - including members of Abbas' elite bodyguard unit - began trading fire on two major streets nearby, and gunmen from both sides took positions on rooftops.

The clashes later spilled over to an area near the president's residence. Hamas militiamen scrambled up to the rooftop of the nearby Agriculture Ministry and began firing rocket-propelled grenades and rifles at the presidential guard.

"We are going to beat with iron fists all those elements who are trying to sabotage the election process of our people, those who are trying to destroy our public properties and close the streets," said Islam Shahwan, a spokesman for the militia.

The street battles killed a total of four people, including a member of Abbas' presidential bodyguard and a 15-year-old boy, according to Dr. Baker Abu Safia, director of Gaza's Shifa Hospital.

Two other people were killed in related violence, and at least 100 people were injured, hospital officials said.

A seventh person, a member of the Preventive Security force, was killed Saturday night when the car in which was traveling came under fire from unknown gunmen, security officials said.

An eighth person, a Fatah supporter, was killed after thousands of Fatah protesters in the Bureij refugee camp marched to the house of a local Hamas leader and a grenade was thrown into the crowd, setting off a nighttime gunfight, Fatah officials said. Hamas officials said the crowd attacked the house.

A gun battle between rival forces also erupted in a Gaza hospital, where many Palestinians injured in previous clashes lay, wounding at least four people.

In response to the violence, Fatah protesters in the West Bank city of Ramallah arched to the Cabinet building - which had already shut down for the day - pelted it with stones, broke in and lit the second floor on fire. The militants threw files out the windows and witnesses could see pieces of furniture being thrown about.

Fatah loyalists also kidnapped a top official in the Palestinian Finance Ministry in the West Bank city of Ramallah, a Hamas official said.

Earlier, Hamas security men in the Gaza Strip seized five members of a force loyal to Abbas.

The conditions of the kidnapped men were unknown.

A second building in the compound was also set ablaze. Forced out by the flames and smoke, the militants moved to the nearby Education Ministry and torched the minister's car on the way. They then trashed the offices of a Hamas newspaper.

In the northern West Bank city of Nablus, dozens of Fatah-allied gunmen fired in the air, closed a major road with burning tires and threatened to retaliate for any Hamas violence in Gaza with attacks in the West Bank, a Fatah stronghold.

"This is forbidden in Islam, we are in the holy month of Ramadan," said Majed Badawi, 33, who managed to escape uninjured after his car was caught in the crossfire. "It's a shame on Hamas, who call themselves real Muslims, and a shame of Fatah as well. Why are they fighting and over what? We are victims because of both of them."

"Nothing can justify this violence," said Tawfik Abu Khoussa, a Fatah spokesman.

Ghazi Hamad, a spokesman for the Hamas government, said the violence was "regrettable," but the Hamas force was acting with restraint when it was attacked.

"The protest today was beyond acceptable legal norms and turned truly into lawlessness," he said.

In the West Bank city of Hebron, Fatah-allied militants blocked roads with burning tires and ransacked the offices of local Hamas lawmakers and set the furniture on fire in the street. In Nablus, Fatah gunmen attacked a Hamas women's center and traded fire with Hamas gunmen.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/769437.html
 

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PS:

Actually it seems that the Palestinians are not really able to learn from their "mistakes". Since long time - especially after the founding of Hamas in the middle of the 1980's - they just try to fullfil the wishes of the Israeli government/occupation forces: to create a situation of civil war in the Palestinian/PA territories. A reader of the Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth wrote yesterday evening: "At least there keep'n busy with shot at there own wonderful selves and not at us!!" 

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* Ramadan is the ninth month of the Muslim year, when Muslims do not eat between the rising and setting of the sun. During Ramadan, Muslims celebrate the fact that it was in this month that God first revealed the words of the Quran to Mohammed.

** (^^)