Senior Abbas aide rushes to Gaza to try to defuse power-sharing rift

RAMALLAH, West Bank -- A senior aide to Mahmoud Abbas made an emergency trip to the Gaza Strip on Saturday to try to bridge the rancorous rift between the moderate Palestinian leader and the Hamas militants controlling parliament and the Cabinet.

The rupture threatens to jeopardize Abbas' efforts to keep the West from shunning the Palestinians over Hamas' violently anti-Israel ideology. Abbas, elected separately last year, would like to strike a negotiated peace deal with Israel, but Hamas refuses to disarm or recognize Israel's right to exist.

The cool civility that had existed between the two sides since the Islamic militants swept Abbas' Fatah Party from power in January broke down Friday when Abbas vetoed the group's plan to appoint a militants' army. Hamas quickly defied Abbas' decree, declaring it would go ahead and form the new force, which will be headed by a top fugitive wanted by Israel.

Hamas' political chief, Khaled Mashaal, fanned the flames by accusing Abbas of treachery, touching off a storm of protests by Fatah leaders, loyalists and gunmen in the West Bank and Gaza Strip on Saturday.

"We can understand that Israel and America are persecuting us, and seeking ways to besiege and starve us, but what about the sons of our people who are plotting against us, who are following a studied plan to make us fail," Mashaal said late Friday from his base in Syria, without mentioning Abbas by name.

Fatah's Revolutionary Council issued a statement accusing Mashaal of "igniting and preparing for civil war."

Abbas was traveling in Jordan on Friday and Saturday and was not immediately available for comment.

But his chief of staff, Rafiq Husseini, left the West Bank town of Ramallah on Saturday for a meeting with Cabinet secretary Mohammed Awad in Gaza City to try to defuse the crisis.

Abbas' office had no immediate comment on Hamas' declaration that it would defy his veto.

Hamas' deputy prime minister, Nasser Shaer, tried to calm the situation earlier in the day by telling Arab TV network Al-Jazeera that Mashaal's statements reflected his own opinion and not the government's.

But a news conference Saturday afternoon at the Interior Ministry, which nominally controls three of the six existing Palestinian security forces, did little to heal the underlying reason for the confrontation.

Spokesman Khaled Abu Hilal announced that the new branch would be under the command of the existing Palestinian police force, which Interior Minister Said Siyam nominally controls, and not directly answerable to Siyam as originally announced. But that was not expected to mollify Abbas.

Abu Hilal also announced a Hamas crackdown on crime, including assaults on police -- the government's original pretext for setting up the separate militant force.

Since the elections, Abbas has been shoring up his already considerable powers. For example, he has taken overall command of all Palestinian security forces.

Hamas' refusal to disarm and recognize Israel has already cost it hundreds of millions of dollars in Western aid and Israeli transfer payments. The Palestinians' sense that they are under siege internationally has intensified frictions in the already volatile West Bank and Gaza.

On Saturday, Communications Minister Jamal Khodari said that during his recent visit to Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, leaders there pledged $71 million to the empty Palestinian treasury. The financial crisis has prevented Hamas from paying April salaries to the 140,000 people on the government payroll, and Khodari told a news conference that those wages would be paid immediately after the money from Qatar and the UAE comes in.

The Arab and Muslim world has taken little action so far to ease the Palestinians' widening financial woes.

Separately, officials in Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh's office said he would meet Saturday with senior Egyptian security officials in Gaza. Egypt has a permanent security mission in Gaza.

According to the officials, the meeting will focus on the volatile internal security situation and Israel's escalated attacks on militants launching rockets from Gaza into southern Israel.