Fatah

In the West, there's a huge sense of relief. The Hamas-led government that has been causing everyone so much trouble has been isolated in Gaza, and a new government has been appointed in the West Bank by the "moderate," peace-loving Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas. So why, then, do Palestinians not share in the relief? Well, for one thing, the old government had been democratically elected; now it has been dismissed out of hand by presidential fiat. There's also the fact that the new prime minister appointed by Mr. Abbas - Salam Fayyad - has the support of the West, but his election list won only 2 percent of the votes in the same election that swept Hamas to victory.

BEIRUT, Lebanon -- Lebanon's defense minister declared victory yesterday over the Fatah Islam militant group, saying it had been crushed after a monthlong military assault on its stronghold in a northern refugee camp and only mopping up remained. A Muslim cleric who has been acting as a mediator said later that Fatah Islam agreed to stop firing, and calm descended over the Nahr el-Bared camp outside the port of Tripoli. The battle, Lebanon's worst internal violence since the 1975-1990 civil war, killed 76 soldiers, at least 60 militants and more than 20 civilians.

RAMALLAH, West Bank -- Suggestions that Hamas' violent takeover of the Gaza Strip has effectively divorced the Palestinians into two separate states - Gaza, controlled by Hamas, and the West Bank, dominated by Fatah - worry Raed Abu Rouk and his new wife, Hind Whaby. The newlyweds insist that whatever the political divisions, the two halves of the state that Palestinians yearn to create must remain united. If not, it might spell disaster for the Palestinian people as a whole. They should know: He is from Gaza.

Hamas' revolt in the Gaza Strip is the best thing to happen to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas since the Islamic militants' electoral rout of his Fatah party 18 months ago. The bloody purge of Fatah security forces from Gaza last week was an embarrassing defeat, but it has reinvigorated Mr. Abbas' beleaguered presidency, providing him with the chance - the excuse - to dissolve the Hamas-dominated government and replace it with Fatah loyalists...

WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration moved quickly yesterday to help Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas consolidate his hold on the West Bank, renewing millions of dollars of aid that will be parceled out by his Fatah-led government. In an effort to work around Abbas' militant Hamas rivals who now control the Gaza Strip, the administration will make additional money available through the United Nations for refugee relief, mainly for the 1.5 million Palestinians who inhabit the troubled coastal strip.

RAMALLAH, West Bank -- Fatah gunmen took aim at Hamas rivals in the West Bank yesterday, storming the Hamas-led parliament and ransacking offices of the Islamist group amid fears that last week's fighting in the Gaza Strip could trigger a wider reprisal campaign here. No deaths were reported during a series of incidents around the West Bank, which came despite Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' efforts to rein in militants affiliated with his Fatah party. Fatah still holds sway in the West Bank, but its forces were overpowered in the Gaza fighting, leaving Hamas in sole control of the seaside strip of land.

JERUSALEM -- After Hamas' swift and humiliating defeat of rival Fatah forces in the Gaza Strip this week, Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas woke up yesterday as president of a broken kingdom with his reputation seemingly sealed as weak and ineffective. "A featherless chick," one commentator in the Israeli newspaper Ma'ariv dubbed Abbas after his military failure against Hamas. Even so, as Israeli and U.S. officials tried to navigate the realities created by Hamas' victory, they pointed to Abbas as the key player in their efforts to back Palestinian moderates, sideline Hamas and perhaps save their failed plans to create a Palestinian state.

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip -- Hamas gunmen seized military control of the Gaza Strip yesterday, executing Fatah rivals and provoking the collapse of their power-sharing government. As Fatah's last security command centers fell after four days of fighting, Hamas military men in black masks moved unchallenged across Gaza City, hunting down foes, blowing up homes and dragging the body of a top Fatah militant through the streets. Hamas fighters marched humiliated agents of the once-feared Preventive Security Service out of their headquarters in handcuffs and stripped to the waist.

On the 40th anniversary of Israel's victory in the Six-Day War and its capture of the Palestinian-dominated West Bank and Gaza Strip, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas bemoaned a war potentially more dangerous to the Palestinian cause than the long-standing occupation - the internecine violence between his political faction, Fatah, and the ruling Islamic party, Hamas. His was a candid, prophetic assessment of the violence that has littered the streets of the Gaza Strip with bodies in recent days and a stark indicator of the consequences of a failed Palestinian leadership.

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.