Hamas, Fatah attempt to form unity government amidst clashes

Warring Palestinian leaders gathered in Islam's holiest city this week in a last-ditch attempt to find a political formula that will bring them back from the edge of civil war. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas leader Khalid Meshaal, each accompanied by a large delegation, met behind closed doors on Feb. 6 in Mecca under the patronage of Saudi King Abdullah. Hamas and Fatah have been trying to form a unity government for months, but repeated efforts to negotiate a power-sharing deal have failed. They have been deadlocked over Hamas' rejection of international calls for it to recognize Israel. Western nations cut off most aid to the Palestinian Authority after the election last year because they consider Hamas a terrorist group. Nevertheless, both sides expressed optimism that they would arrive at an agreement on a national unity government that would put an end to the escalating violence in the Gaza Strip and enable the international community to resume its funding of the hard-pressed Palestinian Authority. A leading Fatah official, Qadura Fares, involved in intensive preliminary contacts with Hamas, said the differences between the two groups had in effect been resolved. "Barring any surprises, they will agree this week on a government of national unity," he said. According to Israeli press reports, the unity government would be headed by the current Hamas prime minister, Ismail Haniya, but Hamas would give up the built-in cabinet majority it has had since winning parliamentary elections a year ago. The three key posts that Hamas and Fatah had been arguing over for months–finance, interior and foreign–would go to neither party, but rather to respected independent parliamentarians. The unity government would include 10 Hamas and six Fatah members, six independents and four ministers from smaller factions. Fawzi Barhoum, a Hamas spokesman in Gaza, said that he expected talks to go on for several days. Control over the security forces and the wording of a new government program are seen as the main sticking points. The negotiations are taking place against a backdrop of recurring failed ceasefires–intense street battles, kidnappings, and assassination attempts in the past week alone have claimed the lives of at least 27 people, including at least five children, and have wounded more than 230. Hamas is holding nine Fatah abductees and Fatah has 28 men. Each side has blamed the other for the escalations in hostilities. On Feb. 2, there were fierce exchanges of machine gun and heavier fire in the central area of Gaza City around the Islamic University, a Hamas stronghold. University workers ran for cover as Hamas and Fatah gunmen traded fire from the rooftops of nearby buildings. Presidential guards stormed the university overnight. An explosion took place inside one of the campus buildings causing a large fire, witnesses said, at what is reputedly the most prestigious Islamic university in the impoverished Palestinian territory. Ismail Radwan, a Hamas spokesman, said: "We heavily condemn this action of the presidential guard and its acts of vandalism committed at the Islamic University, which is an academic institution without armed men or stashes of weapons." According to Fatah, several gunmen were detained, while weapons and explosives were confiscated during an initial sweep of the campus. Fatah said the operation had been ordered after Hamas fighters fired mortar shells and rocket-propelled grenades towards Gaza's main presidential compound from the university. Early on Feb. 3, shooting broke out near a base used by security forces loyal to Fatah and around Abbas' compound. Meanwhile, Fatah forces occupied two ministries of the Hamas-led government, Agriculture and Communications. Hamas said the gunmen destroyed furniture and stole computer equipment. Although the fighting had tapered off from the previous day's carnage, the air in Gaza City was of a place besieged. Masked gunmen manned makeshift checkpoints to look for their rivals. Businesses, universities and most schools were shuttered, leaving more than 200,000 children without classes. Dr. Jumaa al-Saqqa, a surgeon and spokesman for Al Shifa hospital, Gaza's largest, said Hamas forces had taken over the hospital and were using it as a protected firing position. "We're extremely depressed," he said by telephone. "I'm afraid to walk to my office in the hospital. Even in my apartment I'm afraid of a bullet coming through the window." Saqqa said that blood supplies were low, and that given the street fighting and what he called the "shame" of the internal fighting, few Gazans were going out to give blood. "People aren't willing to give blood for this internal fighting," he said. Abed Salaam Shihada, a Gazan documentary maker, said: "One prisoner is punishing another. But Hamas feels itself under real threat; it's defending itself." Shihada suggested that with the international boycott on Hamas and the increased pressure from the United States, including the prospect of $86.4 million in aid and training to Fatah forces loyal to Abbas, Hamas was asserting its presence in Gaza. "For them it's a battle for existence," he said. A small protest against the internal bloodletting was called on Feb. 3 in Unknown Soldiers Square in Gaza City, near the parliament building, but few Gazans felt safe to venture out to join it, residents said. Scores had come in previous days, but only 20 or so turned out for this latest protest. In other news, the Israeli paper Haaretz has reported that the Israeli military was considering a major push into Gaza. No immediate attack was likely but a major incursion on the scale of the 2002 Operation Defensive Shield in the West Bank was being considered, it said. But former prime minister Shimon Peres opposed any intervention. "We need to leave Gaza to the Gazans," he told Army Radio. "Our intervention will not help, on the contrary it will draw all the fire toward Israel." More than 80 Palestinians have been killed since December, when Abbas, a relative moderate, threatened to call early elections if Hamas did not agree to form a power-sharing government that included Fatah and some smaller parties.