THE Fatah movement said on Tuesday night that it is suspending participation in the three-month old unity government with Hamas until the street battles in Gaza end.
The announcement came at the end of one of the bloodiest days of factional fighting in the Gaza Strip.
The death toll in the past 24 hours reached 27, with hundreds wounded.
Earlier in the day, fighters from the armed wing of Hamas had stormed two compounds belonging to forces loyal to the Palestinian president.
The raids came after the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades demanded that all Preventive Security Forces abandon their positions or face attack.
This demand was made after a rocket-propelled grenade was fired into the Palestinian prime minister’s house on Tuesday morning.
Prime minister, Ismail Haniya, who is a member of the Hamas movement, was unharmed although the house was badly damaged.
Hamas condemned the attack as an assassination attempt, while the Palestinian president said that the growing violence was part of a Hamas-led coup attempt.
Hamas, which refuses to recognise Israel, was the runaway winner of the last Palestinian general election, but agreed to form a government of national unity with Fatah and other parties last month.
After a closed-doors meeting Tuesday night, Fatah’s central committee said in a statement: ‘The committee has decided that Fatah ministers will no longer participate in the government if the shooting does not stop.’
Haniya, the prime minister and Hamas member, said a state of emergency should be declared and that talks between the two factions should resume.
President Abbas’ office issued a statement saying: ‘All information and events on the ground in Gaza confirm that there is a group in the Hamas movement, including political and military leaders, that are planning to carry out a coup against the Palestinian legitimacy.
‘The Palestinian presidency is worried about this plot . . . which is pushing the homeland into an ugly civil war.’
A rocket-propelled grenade was fired into the Palestinian prime minister’s house on Tuesday morning. Haniya, who is a member of the Hamas movement, was unharmed.
Fawzi Barhoum, a Hamas spokesman, accused Fatah of firing the rocket in an attempt to assassinate Haniya and vowed punishment ‘without mercy’ of the perpetrators.
‘Hamas has decided to punish the attackers and the killers and it will not be reluctant to punish them without any mercy.’
It was the second time since Monday that Haniya had come under attack, a shooting at his office on Monday interrupted a cabinet meeting but caused no casualties.
Later, an aide to Haniya said that Hamas’s rivals were trying to bring down the unity government which was formed in March.
‘Certain parties, collaborating with parties hostile to our people, have tried to bring down the government of national unity by force,’ the official said.
Witnesses said that a large security compound in Gaza City was attacked just minutes after the Hamas deadline expired. Heavy gunfire and explosions were heard in the area, but there was no immediate word on casualties.
A second headquarters in Jabiliya, in the north of the strip, was also besieged.
Hamas-affiliated radio stations said fighters had taken control of security installations in northern and central Gaza, as well as the southern town of Khan Younis.
Earlier, the presidential compound in Gaza City also came under attack with mortar shells, an officer in Abbas’s presidential guard said.
At least 18 people have been killed since the fighting escalated on Monday.
The factional fighting has spread to the West Bank.
Doctor Musa Abu-Marzuq, deputy head of the Political Bureau of the Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, has stressed that the violence and armed clashes taking place between Hamas and Fatah fighters in Gaza and Rafah are basically an expression of a political rather than security problem.
He said the escalation of the security situation in Gaza, Rafah, and other parts of the Palestinian territories is aimed at forcing Hamas out of the political equation.
He said: ‘What is taking place in Gaza and Rafah is a political rather than security problem. America and Israel want to force Hamas out of the political equation. Therefore, the security problem surfaces whenever the political parties get together to agree on one position.’
The leading Hamas figure accused a team belonging to the presidential security corps of waging this war by proxy, and said: ‘An opportunist team enjoying all the privileges of US financing, is acting in harmony with this Israeli and American goal.
‘This financing sometimes comes in the name of specific persons.
‘Fatah should lift the political cover of this team because it is leading the Palestinian arena towards destruction.
‘This team will not have any political future no matter how much it is supported by funds.
‘The team members are known by name to all Palestinians, including children. If you ask them about the ones who sow sedition, they will mention them by name.’
Abu-Marzuq added: ‘America wants us to recognise Israel and implement its vision in the Middle East or get out of the political equation.
‘We do not believe that the American vision will achieve Palestinian interests.
‘This is the main problem. Anyone who believes that peace, as viewed by the US Administration, is the highest strategy, will be considered a close friend and will get aid from everywhere.
‘This conflicts with the Palestinian people’s ambitions because the latter have completely lost hope in the settlement process. Rejection of this process brought Hamas to the political equation. Therefore, this is the will of people and none can break it.’
Abu-Marzuq expected the security situation in the Palestinian territories to continue to deteriorate, attributing this to foreign pressures, particularly the US and Israeli pressures.
He said: ‘That was very clear when Dayton presented his last report to Congress. In it he admitted that the performance of the presidential security corps improved in confronting Hamas and that it should be trained and supplied with weapons.
‘Therefore, this security chaos is originally political chaos resulting from foreign interference and this is imposed on us.
‘We call on all concerned parties to stop this interference because the American policies should not rule this region.’
Asked if Hamas has any political horizon to accept a state in the 1967 territories, Dr Musa Abu-Marzuq said: ‘We are not for an open battle without a political horizon. We do not want the Palestinian people to live without a political horizon. We are for the establishment of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and for a truce. We have stated this in the national accord document and in many international forums.
‘We believe that this is the way to solve the Palestinian question.’
He reiterated his movement’s adherence to what he called ‘the constants of the Palestinian people, headed by their right to return.’
He concluded by calling on Fatah’s historic leaders ‘to lift the political cover’ given to the ones whom he said are leading ‘the entire Palestinian society to destruction so that these can be isolated on the political and popular levels.’