Early polls’ call triggers factional clashes in Gaza

GAZA CITY—A Palestinian woman was killed in an explosion of tit-for-tat violence between rival factions in the Gaza Strip following president Mahmud Abbas’s high-stakes call for early elections.
Abbas’s move set off fears that the bitter power struggle between Hamas — the Islamist movement that took power in March after a shock election win — and the president’s own Fatah faction could ignite a civil war.
Explosions and automatic gunshots rocked central Gaza City for hours Sunday as Hamas and Fatah gunmen traded fire around the presidential compound. A 19-year-old was killed and six others were wounded, including a 10-year-old girl and a veteran French war reporter.
Two people were wounded after mortar shells hit the presidential compound in Gaza City and seven were wounded when forces loyal to Hamas opened fire on pro-Abbas demonstrators in the north of the territory.
Unidentified gunmen also fired on hardline Hamas foreign minister Mahmud Zahar’s vehicle in Gaza but he escaped unscathed, his spokesman said. A member of Abbas’s presidential guard was killed before dawn and several people injured in what a security official described as an attempt by Hamas members to storm a training camp. Hamas has denied the charge.
The attack on Zahar came just days after gunmen fired on Palestinian prime minister Ismail Haniya’s convoy in southern Gaza in what Hamas branded an assassination attempt masterminded by a top Fatah figure. As the violence rose, the acting speaker of the Hamas-dominated parliament appealed to militants to lay down their arms.
“We ask all armed people to leave the streets and stop fighting,” said a statement from Ahmed Bahar, a member of Hamas. “We ask people not to use weapons to solve political issues and not to take polical issues to the street.”
Hamas, whose government is boycotted by Israel and the West, has described Abbas’s move as a coup and a call for civil war and vowed to fight it by bringing its supporters into the streets.
“The government rejects the call for legislative elections as they are unconstitutional and create confusion,” Haniya said at a cabinet meeting. Abbas said elections were the way to resolve the seething tensions with Hamas, which have paralyzed the Palestinian administration, already broke because of a Western aid freeze. “We are living through difficult and miserable times,” he said. “To break the vicious circle and prevent our lives from deteriorating further and our cause from eroding, I have decided to call early presidential and legislative elections. Let the people have their say and decide.”
But he did not set a date. Election officials said they would need 110 days to organize a ballot once Abbas issues an official decree — something he has thus far not done. According to an opinion poll released Sunday, 61 percent of Palestinians support holding early elections. It found that Fatah faction would narrowly win a parliamentary election with 42 percent of the vote, compared with 36 percent for Hamas.
As the violence escalated, international calls poured in for retraint. The European Union urged Palestinians to refrain from violence, Russia called for a preservation of national unity and Syria called for a resumption of talks to form a national unity government.
In neighbouring Jordan, government daily Al-Rai called for immediate Arab intervention, saying that the “possibility of a civil war cannot be ruled out.” Abbas has won Western backing for his move, with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who is on a regional tour, urging the international community to rally behind the president.
The United States said it hoped that elections would help quell violence, while Israel — which views Hamas as a terrorist organisation that refuses to recognize the Jewish state — said it supported the moderate president.
Abbas left the door open to forming a government of national unity, composed of technocrats, to avoid what would be only the third election since the Palestinian Authority was formed in 1994.
Complicating the crisis is the fact that Palestinian basic law does not address the issue of early elections. The current parliament, elected in January, normally would remain in place until the end of 2010.—Agencies