Hamas Derides Gaza Pullout

GAZA, 13 June 2004 — Hamas vowed yesterday to continue attacks against Israel after an Israeli pullout from Gaza and refused to give a green light to Egypt to assume a security role in the coastal strip.

“Withdrawal from the Gaza Strip does not mean the end of occupation,” Mahmoud Al-Zahar, a senior Hamas leader, told reporters, referring to the West Bank. “Our position will remain... to continue the resistance.”

Zahar spoke against the backdrop of a meeting in Gaza between Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qorei and hard-line factions, including Hamas, following the Israeli Cabinet’s approval in principle on Sunday of a Gaza pullout plan.

In separate remarks, Qorei praised Egypt’s offer to send advisers to Gaza to help train and equip the Palestinian Authority’s security forces.

Asked whether Hamas would provide Egypt or the Palestinian Authority with guarantees to stop attacks after a withdrawal, Zahar called the unilateral pullout plan “one-sided” and said the group was “against giving any security commitments.”

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s pullout plan calls for the removal of all 21 Jewish settlements in Gaza, where 7,500 Israelis and 1.3 million Palestinians live, and four of 120 in the West Bank, home to 230,000 settlers and 2.4 million Palestinians.

Meanwhile, armed militias in Fatah threatened mutiny yesterday, accusing the main Palestinian faction of failing to include them in decision-making and defend them from Israeli crackdowns. The threat by Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades underscored growing instability in the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority as a new, militant generation in the faction confronts an old guard seen as impotent after 3-1/2 years of conflict with Israel.

“We are seriously considering withdrawing from Fatah because our leadership has so far neglected us and because of the deterioration in Fatah,” Nayef Abu Sharkh, Brigades leader in the West Bank, told Reuters.

“We are a power to be reckoned with in Fatah,” he said. “The leadership either changes its ways or we leave. We are not splitting from the group. We are withdrawing (support) only.”

Fatah officials confirmed there was a crisis in the faction. “We are aware of the problems. The (Fatah) leadership has named several people to talk to the Brigades to try to solve the problem,” said a senior official, who declined to be named.

Fatah activists formed the Brigades after a Palestinian uprising erupted in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip in 2000. The Brigades have often criticized the Fatah leadership, accusing it of cronyism and calling for new faction elections.

Brigades attacks inside Israel have embarrassed the Palestinian Authority, which condemns violence outside the West Bank and Gaza.

“The leadership does not give us money and doesn’t take care of the families of martyrs and those arrested while resisting occupation,” Abu Sharkh said. “They ignore us and are only in touch with us when they want us to adhere to a truce or to a political stance adopted by the leadership.”