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Monday, May 14, 2007

Hamas is blocking western arms for Palestinians shipped via Egypt

GAZA CITY — The Hamas-led Palestinian Authority, with the help of Iranian military advisers, has sought to block the flow of Western-financed weapons to the rival Fatah movement.

Palestinian sources said Hamas, through several security agencies, have been targeting shipments of weapons and other military supplies to PA forces loyal to chairman Mahmoud Abbas. They said the Islamic movement has concluded that the shipments to the Gaza Strip from Egypt were meant to fuel an Abbas-led campaign to topple the Hamas government.

"While money and assistance are withheld from the Palestinian people, these deliveries reach the [Abbas-aligned] Presidential Guards in order to instigate sedition," Hamas spokesman Mohammed Abu Obaida said.

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On Thursday, the Hamas-controlled Interior Ministry's Executive Force attacked a convoy of four trucks that transported military equipment to the Presidential Guards base in the central Gaza Strip. At least six people were killed in the ensuing battle, which included mortars and rocket-propelled grenade fire. The casualties shattered a ceasefire agreed to on Jan. 30.

"As we see this measure as an absolute danger, we demand that Arab countries halt the entry of any weapons aimed to strengthen one party against the other," Hamas said in a statement.

At a news conference, Abu Obaida said the 4,700-member PG was undergoing a massive armament effort. He said that since Jan. 31 at least seven other trucks filled with weapons and military equipment arrived at PG bases in the Gaza Strip.

Fatah spokespeople said Thursday's convoy to PG contained generators, tents and medical equipment. They said Hamas ambushed the convoy near the Palestinian refugee camp of Bureij and hijacked two of the trucks. At least four PG officers were killed.

"How can they attack the Presidential Guards like that when there is a ceasefire?" PG spokesman Wael Dahab said.

The Hamas attack sparked battles with Fatah throughout Gaza City and in the northern Gaza Strip. Executive Force troops fired RPGs at a post of the Fatah-aligned Military Intelligence and then stormed the facility, injuring five MI members.

Hours later, PA forces loyal to Abbas raided the Hamas-controlled Islamic University in the Gaza Strip, and Fatah said seven Iranian military trainers, including a general, were captured. PA sources said another Iranian operative blew himself up in a suicide strike during the raid.

Fatah, which did not provide details of the Iranian detainees, said 1,500 weapons and RPGs were confiscated at Islamic University. On Friday, at least six people were killed in militia battles in the northern Gaza Strip.

Egypt has condemned the Hamas attack on the PG convoy. Maj. Gen. Burhan Jamal Hamad, chief of the Egyptian security delegation in the Gaza Strip, said the assault was unjustified, but did not detail the contents of the shipment to Abbas loyalists.

"I told all Palestinian parties that the rumors of having weapons inside those trucks were false," Hamad said. "What is happening in Gaza will never serve the Palestinian cause, nor can it be beneficial to any Palestinian party."


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