GAZA CITY, 22 April 2006 — Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas yesterday blocked a Hamas move to set up a security force made up of Palestinian fighters and to be headed by the No. 2 on Israel’s wanted list.

Abbas issued a presidential decree vetoing the decisions made a day earlier by Interior Minister Said Siyam of Hamas. As president, Abbas wields considerable power and has the right to approve or reject key appointments.

Senior Abbas aide Tayeb Abdel Raheem told reporters that the president was sending a letter to Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh explaining the reasons for canceling “this illegal decision.” Tayeb said the appointment of Abu Samhadana and the decision to create a security force was illegal because “the constitutional law does not give the interior minister the right to appoint and create new security apparatus.” Abu Samhadana, 43, is a founding member of a group suspected of a deadly attack on a US diplomatic convoy and served a year in Palestinian jails for involvement in violent activity.

The new force was to be made up of Palestinian fighters from various factions. Under the current arrangement, the interior minister controls three branches of the security forces, while the president has direct command over three other groups. However, Abbas is also overall commander of the security forces.

In the letter to Haniyeh, Abbas wrote that “we have learned through the media that the interior minister issued decisions violating the law.” “All the officers, soldiers and security personnel are asked not to abide by these decisions and to consider them non-existent,” Abbas said in the letter.

Earlier, Abu Samhadana said he was not bothered about Israeli threats. He was responding to Israeli threats to get its hands on him sooner or later and denouncing his appointment as proof of the “terrorist” nature of the new Palestinian Authority.

“We are not frightened of the Zionist entity. The occupation has tried to assassinate me several times in the past but thanks be to God I have escaped. We are not afraid of death. On the contrary, we fight to die as martyrs,” he added.

The 45-year-old leader of the Popular Resistance Committees comes from the southern Gaza town of Rafah and has escaped two Israeli assassination attempts with injuries.

Meanwhile, the French government yesterday refused to grant a visa to a minister in the Hamas-led Palestinian government, the Foreign Ministry in Paris said.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Jean-Baptiste Mattei said the decision to withhold the visa from Palestinian Government Planning Minister Samir Abou Eisheh was carried out “in concert with our European partners.” “This decision derives from the European policy... that is, the suspension of contacts with the Palestinian government” until its leaders fail to accede to specific demands by Europe and the United States, notably renouncing violence and recognizing the state of Israel,” he said.

Eisheh had planned to participate at a “Forum on Euro-Arab Dialogue” at the Institute of the Arab World in Paris, at which French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy was also scheduled to take part.

In Brussels, the European Union denied that its suspension of Palestinian aid is chiefly to blame for the government’s financial crisis, pointing the finger clearly at Israel.

The European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, said it was not a “major source” of funding for the Palestinian Authority, underlining that only 10 percent of the government’s wage bill usually comes from EU money.

“While we are the major donor... we are not the major source of finance for the Palestinian Authority,” said Emma Udwin, spokeswoman for EU External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner.

“The Palestinian Authority lives much more substantially from the tax transfers made by Israel of Palestinian money,” she said.

Since Hamas’ January election win, Israel has suspended transfers of around $50 million every month as reimbursement for customs duties levied on goods destined for Palestinian markets that transit through Israeli ports.

“That accounts for a much much larger proportion of the budget than we could ever hope to fund with EU tax payers money,” the spokeswoman said.

And she added: “The financial crisis that we have in the Palestinian Authority... is most overwhelmingly caused by the ongoing conflict and the restrictions on freedom of movement” in the territories.

— Additional input from agencies