Fatah

JERUSALEM -- A Hamas official in Gaza said yesterday that his organization was holding unofficial talks with representatives from the rival Fatah movement, as tension between the factions continued to simmer. Fatah officials deny that any such dialogue is taking place. An adviser to Ismail Haniyeh, the deposed Palestinian prime minister of Hamas, said that the talks had been authorized by the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah, but that so far they had not led to any breakthrough.

The Sun editorial "Mr. Abbas' mission" (Feb. 13) is a triumph of wishful thinking over analysis. Its self-contradictions and omissions include: •Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas "would have to exercise the kind of statesmanship that has been sadly lacking among the Palestinians for generations" to lead a unity government of his Fatah movement and the terrorist Hamas to peace with Israel. "It's too early to say" if he could. It's hardly too early to say the 74-year-old Mr. Abbas can't and won't.

JERUSALEM -- In a sharp challenge yesterday to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, the Hamas-dominated parliament annulled a series of measures by the departing legislature that were aimed at strengthening the president's powers. Hours later, tensions rose when an Israeli airstrike in Gaza City killed two Palestinian militants and three passers-by, one an 8-year-old boy. Israel acknowledged having carried out the "targeted killing" of an Islamic Jihad operative responsible for a number of attacks against Israelis and expressed regret over civilian casualties.

In September, the Palestinian Authority of Mahmoud Abbas plans to bring a statehood petition to the United Nations. The initial plan is to bring it to the Security Council for approval. If the U.S. vetoes it, as expected, the PA will then bring it to the U.N. General Assembly, where it hopes to mobilize a vast majority to support a Palestinian state along the pre-1967-war boundaries, with East Jerusalem as its capital. While such a ploy would not give the PA formal U.N. membership, it would legitimize PA state-building efforts and put Israel on the defensive.

JERUSALEM -- Scattered clashes were reported yesterday around the Gaza Strip and West Bank, a day after fierce fighting between the ruling Hamas movement and rivals in the formerly dominant Fatah party. However, both groups appeared to pull back from even greater confrontations after shootouts the previous day had left at least eight people dead and scores wounded in the Gaza Strip, the deadliest violence during a months-long power struggle. Hamas withdrew its force of about 3,000 officers from the streets yesterday after Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas ordered security force members, mostly from his Fatah movement, to halt protests over the government's failure to pay them.

JERUSALEM -- Palestinian gunmen stormed four election offices in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank yesterday, adding to the climate of political instability in advance of parliamentary elections planned for next month. Dozens of masked gunmen belonging to the Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah movement fired into the air and then burst into election offices in Gaza City. The gunmen said they were upset with the candidates whom Abbas and the Fatah leadership plan to enter in the election.

RAMALLAH, West Bank -- They did their best to remind voters of Fatah's storied past. Organizers of the rally for Fatah - the party of Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas, the party that is the core of the Palestinian government - blared decades-old fighting songs from loudspeakers. Speech after speech recalled generations of Fatah members wounded, imprisoned or killed during countless clashes with Israel. A poster of Arafat loomed above the stage. But Fatah leaders could not hide the fact that with a week to go before the Palestinians' first legislative elections in 10 years, the party is in trouble, at war with itself and facing the prospect of losing its once unquestioned leadership of the Palestinian cause.

JERUSALEM -- Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah movement survived a bid to unseat it from most municipal councils across the West Bank and Gaza Strip this week, although the Islamic militant faction Hamas captured the three biggest towns up for grabs, preliminary election results showed yesterday. Hamas won Thursday's elections in the towns of Rafah and Beit Lahiya, the most battered in the 4 1/2 -year war with Israel, as well as Qalqiliya, a key border city with Israel that is slated to be handed over to Palestinian control.

JERUSALEM -- Israel and the United States scrambled yesterday to plan strategies in case of a Hamas victory in Palestinian parliamentary elections this week amid polls showing the militant Islamic faction running neck and neck with the governing Fatah party. Fatah campaign manager Nabil Shaath expressed confidence that his party would win enough seats to continue running the Palestinian Authority and vowed that the new government would not include parties that oppose a U.S.-backed peace plan.

JERUSALEM -- The Fatah movement that dominates Palestinian politics was immersed in turmoil yesterday as leaders sought to avert a potentially damaging party split five weeks before elections to parliament. Members of Fatah's so-called young guard insisted they had no intention of backing down after submitting a list of candidates to rival the official Fatah slate. The renegades offered a candidate roster, under the name of a new party called The Future, with jailed uprising leader Marwan Barghouti at the top. The official Fatah slate also placed Barghouti in the top slot.

RAMALLAH, West Bank - Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, a U.S.-trained economist who gained international respect and hefty aid donations for the Palestinian cause, said yesterday that he will step down in a move aimed at reviving a power-sharing deal with the militant group Hamas. The shake-up is part of evolving leadership changes on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that could complicate President Barack Obama's search for peace in the region. In Israel, Prime Minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu is working to form a coalition government of right-wing parties that gained a majority in the parliament elected last month.

JERUSALEM -- Israel said yesterday it has authorized a shipment of 25 armored vehicles and 1,000 rifles to bolster a promised Palestinian police crackdown on armed militants in the West Bank. Approval of the shipment, which had been proposed by Russia two years ago but stalled by Israeli opposition, was aimed at building trust with the Palestinian Authority's leaders as Israel prepares to restart formal peace negotiations with them. Israel also will allow the Gaza Strip to resume strawberry and flower exports that have been blocked since September.

RAMALLAH, West Bank -- Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas sharpened the war of words against his Hamas rivals yesterday, saying it was time to "bring down" the militant group's regime in the Gaza Strip. Abbas' comments against Hamas, whose fighters defeated his Fatah faction to take control of Gaza five months ago, reflected his anger over a deadly clash in the coastal enclave earlier this week. "We have to bring down this bunch which took over the Gaza Strip by force and which is trading on the suffering and misery of our people," Abbas said in broadcast remarks marking the 19th anniversary of the Palestinian declaration of independence.

The Islamic militant group Hamas brutally put down a rally by thousands of Gazans who turned out this week to mark the third anniversary of the death of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. The demonstration was a tribute to Mr. Arafat, but more important, it was also a show of support for his Fatah faction and a strong sign of Gazans' growing antipathy toward Hamas. In Gaza, though, Hamas gunmen rule, and they may well become the uninvited spoilers of the peace summit planned for Annapolis.

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip -- At least six Palestinians were killed and more than a hundred wounded yesterday when a mass rally marking the third anniversary of the death of Yasser Arafat, the longtime Palestinian leader, ended in armed clashes between the rival factions of Hamas and Fatah. All of the dead and most of the wounded were Fatah supporters who had been taking part in the rally, according to doctors at two Gaza hospitals. Tens of thousands of Gaza residents had turned out to honor Arafat, the founder of the Fatah movement, in the largest show of support for the mainstream Palestinian organization since the Islamic group Hamas seized control of the territory last June.

While Israeli and Palestinian teams seek to iron out conditions for renewed peace talks in Annapolis this fall, deep divisions among the Palestinian and Israeli political leaderships doom any Middle East peace summit to failure. Peace talks are usually a good thing. However, now is not the right time for such a summit, because - with a divided Palestinian polity and Israel's leadership in trouble - no progress would be made. It is possible, even likely, that another failure would lead to more frustration and violence, and could serve to embolden extremists on both sides who are opposed to peace.

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip -- Hamas forces blew up or captured three more security compounds yesterday from outgunned Fatah defenders who surrendered by the dozens as the militant Islamic movement expanded its control of the Gaza Strip. Hamas battered Fatah's four main compounds with mortar shells, rocket-propelled grenades and automatic weapons fire. Both Palestinian factions fired wildly from high-rise rooftops, and Hamas turned a mosque into a grenade-launching base. By late yesterday, Hamas controlled nearly all of the densely populated coastal territory outside this sprawling capital city.

JERUSALEM -- At least three more Palestinians were killed yesterday in Gaza in continuing battles between fighters loyal to Fatah and Hamas, which has been celebrating its victory a year ago over Fatah in legislative elections. At least 14 Palestinians, including a 2-year-old boy, died Friday in daylong clashes and retaliatory attacks. The death toll has reached 20 since Thursday, with more than 65 people wounded, news agencies reported. Those killed yesterday were identified as Mahmoud Khalil Khatib, 17, who appears to have been a bystander, and two members of the security forces, Ibrahim al-Khalout, 25, and Mohammad Khattab, 33. The fighting broke out near Hamas' Islamic University, the headquarters of the Fatah-dominated preventive security force in Gaza City and the Shifa Hospital just a few blocks away.

Nahr el-Bared, Lebanon -- The Lebanese army routed a group of Islamist militants from a Palestinian refugee camp yesterday, ending more than three months of intense fighting that left thousands homeless and killed more than 300 people. The final countdown to the battle in northern Lebanon started early in the day, when troops thwarted escape attempts by the militants, an army source said. At least 30 fighters were killed and 15 were captured at the Nahr el-Bared camp, the official said.

JENIN, West Bank -- When an Israeli army officer inadvertently drove alone into this West Bank city on Monday, an angry Palestinian mob torched his car and threatened to lynch him. Noticeably absent from the melee was Jenin's celebrated militant and one of Israel's most wanted men, Zakaria Zubeidi, a leader of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade. Zubeidi chose to sit out the riot, idly passing his time in a plastic chair under the eyes of the Palestinian security officials in Jenin, as Palestinian police scrambled to rescue the Israeli officer and escort him safely to Israeli army officials.