Fatah officials call for Abbas to resign
(AP)
Updated: 2006-03-18 08:53

Several Fatah officials called on President Mahmoud Abbas to resign and dissolve the Palestinian Authority to protest Israel's raid of a West Bank prison earlier this week, party activists said Friday.

The raid, in which Israel seized six top militants, was seen as a humiliating blow to Abbas' prestige and raised new questions in his Fatah Party about their president's ability to govern, especially following Hamas' landslide victory in a January parliamentary election.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, also known as Abu Mazen, attends Muslim Friday noon prayers at a mosque adjacent to his offices in the West Bank town of Ramallah, March 17, 2006. Following Hamas' election, Israel declared it would have nothing to do with a government that incorporated the militant group. Israel has rejected Abbas' offer to continue negotiations under the auspices of the Palestine Liberation Organization, which he heads, saying Abbas is part and parcel of a terrorist government even though he doesn't belong to Hamas and holds more moderate views. [AP]

If the Palestinian Authority is dissolved, Israel 锟斤拷 as occupier of the West Bank and Gaza Strip 锟斤拷 would be forced to assume responsibility for the 3 million Palestinians living there. The dissolution also would render Hamas' election victory irrelevant.

In violence Friday, Israeli soldiers shot and killed a 10-year-old girl during an operation in the West Bank village of Yamoun, the girl's father, Abdul Rahman Zaed, said. The girl was in a car with her uncle, who was shot in the head and arrested, Zaed said.

The army, engaged in a fierce gunbattle with militants in Yamoun, surrounded a house in which three militants were holed up and called on them to surrender, Palestinian security officials said. Later, a 13-year-old boy was wounded in the fighting, officials said.

The call for Abbas' resignation and the dissolution of the Palestinian Authority at the Fatah Central Committee late Thursday was the first time such a demand was made.

Analysts and Fatah officials said the demands 锟斤拷 raised both in a letter to Abbas signed by five midlevel Fatah activists and at Thursday's meeting by a senior party official 锟斤拷 are not serious at the moment.

However, the idea could gain momentum if a resumption of peace talks becomes increasingly unlikely and the economic situation deteriorates further, said Ghassan Khatib, the outgoing Palestinian planning minister.

Taysir Nasrallah, a Fatah official from the West Bank city of Nablus who signed the letter, said Israel's prison raid showed the Palestinian Authority was useless.

"Israel should pay a heavy price for occupying the Palestinian Authority," Nasrallah told The Associated Press.

In Thursday's meeting of Fatah's Central Committee, one of the members, Tayeb Abdel Rahim, opened the session by demanding that Abbas resign and dissolve the Palestinian Authority, a participant said. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media about the closed-door session.

The official quoted Abdel Rahim as saying that the Palestinian Authority is unable to solve Palestinian problems and that it is "time for us to leave."

During a tour of the demolished prison in Jericho a day after Israel's raid, Abbas rejected the idea that he would resign and dissolve the Palestinian Authority.

Fatah has been increasingly frustrated with Abbas since Hamas' election victory, and the party is almost certainly not joining the Islamic group's new government.

Abbas is tentatively scheduled to meet Hamas' designated prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh, on Saturday.

Hamas spokesman Salah Bardawil said the group would be ready to present its government to Abbas on Saturday. Abbas has the power to veto Hamas' government, forcing it to return with a different program.

Since Hamas' election victory, Israel has tightened its hold on the Palestinians.

It has stopped transferring millions of dollars in tax revenues collected for the Palestinian Authority and has called on the international community to slap economic sanctions on a Hamas government, steps the World Bank says would devastate the already poverty-ridden Palestinian areas.

A closure on Palestinian areas, meant to end Thursday after the Jewish holiday of Purim, has been extended until at least next week, and the army is inclined to continue it until after Israel's March 28 elections.

The closure bars Palestinian laborers from entering Israel and shuts down Gaza's main cargo crossing, Karni. Israel, citing security concerns, has closed Karni on and off for most of the past two months.

Karni's closure led the Palestinian Mill Co., which says it supplies about 60 percent of Gaza's flour, to idle last week because it used up its flour stocks. On Friday, Palestinians flocked to bakeries in Gaza City, fearing a bread shortage.

The Palestinian National Economy Ministry said Friday it expects bakeries to run out of flour within a few days because of the mill's shutdown.

Also Friday, two Palestinians were killed and three wounded in northern Gaza when homemade rockets they were preparing to fire at Israel exploded prematurely, Palestinian security officials said.