GAZA, 19 October 2005 — Over 240 members of the main Palestinian political faction, Fatah, resigned in the Gaza Strip yesterday in a sign of internal division ahead of a vote to choose parliamentary election candidates.

The 244 mainly young members from the southern town of Rafah, signed a mass letter of resignation saying that they were quitting in protest at “the lack of accountability and democratization within Fatah”. They also demanded jobs.

Fatah, led by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, is due to pick candidates next month for January parliamentary elections in which it will be challenged for the first time by Islamist group Hamas. Fatah is divided between members demanding reforms and an old guard from the days of late leader Yasser Arafat that is widely seen as being tainted by corruption and incompetence.

The members who resigned said they feared the primary elections would not be fair as the old guard has more influence. “The resignation is addressed to Fatah’s leadership ... so that all members of Fatah will be assured of their rights... Also to guarantee that Fatah members will be given jobs,” said Abdel-Raouf Barbakh, one of the signatories.

The Fatah primary election is due to be its first. Previously, candidates were appointed by the leadership. The only previous parliamentary election was in 1996. Various armed Fatah factions in Gaza are also at the heart of lawlessness in the territory, which has intensified following Israel’s withdrawal last month.

Earlier yesterday, gunmen from a newly formed armed Fatah group called the Knights of the Tempest, seized two men they accused of collaborating with Israel. They said they acted because Palestinian security forces had failed to respond to their calls to act against the men they accused of collaborating with Israel.

Meanwhile, legislators agreed yesterday to hold off on their demands for the formation of a new Cabinet until hearing directly from Abbas when he returns from abroad next week. In a letter to MPs read out in the Ramallah-based Parliament, Abbas asked to be given the opportunity to address the legislative council on Wednesday of next week following his return from the United States where he is to meet US President George W. Bush on Oct. 20.

“The issue of the government is of such importance that it requires a meeting between myself and members of Parliament immediately after my return from aboard,” Abbas wrote in the letter read out by speaker Rawhi Fattuh. Fattuh said a comfortable majority of MPs had agreed to shelve discussions about the formation of a new government until next week.

“We are still sticking by our decision to demand that this cabinet be changed but we agreed to delay discussing this issue until next Wednesday,” he told reporters. The Parliament passed a motion on Oct. 3 calling on Abbas to appoint a new government as a result of the failure by Prime Minister Ahmed Qorei’s administration to halt the security chaos in the West Bank and Gaza.

However, Abbas has already let it be known that he does not feel he has enough time to appoint a new government before the Nov. 24 start of candidate registrations for legislative parliamentary elections on Jan. 25. A transitional Cabinet must take charge from Nov. 24, as the electoral law stipulates that all candidates must step down from government. The start of yesterday’s session was briefly delayed following a sit-in by some 300 workers in the grounds of the Parliament’s Gaza City branch.

The demonstrators were demanding that MPs not only find them work but also pay for their electricity and water bills. Deputies from Gaza often join in debates at the parliament’s Ramallah headquarters via video-phone as a result of Israeli travel restrictions.

In another development, Egypt’s ambassador to Israel has played down fears that a truce agreement among the Palestinian factions brokered in Cairo is on the brink of collapse because of a deadly shooting attack. Mohammed Asim Ibrahim said Sunday’s shooting near the Gush Etzion settlement bloc in the southern West Bank, the first fatal attack since Israel’s pullout from the Gaza Strip, was “too small to destroy the process of calm” in the region.