GAZA CITY, 7 March 2006 — The Hamas-controlled Palestinian Parliament yesterday canceled all decisions made in the last session of the outgoing legislature, including legislation that gave additional powers to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
Fatah, the faction that dominated the Palestine Legislative Council (Parliament) until it was defeated by Hamas in Jan. 25 elections, boycotted the vote having earlier staged a walkout from the chamber.
The absence of the Fatah MPs meant that while 64 MPs voted to repeal the measures, there were no votes against and only six abstentions.
On Feb. 13, the outgoing Parliament appointed Fatah men to key administrative posts and backed the creation of a constitutional court, whose members would be named by Palestinian Authority President and Fatah member Mahmoud Abbas.
Deputies from Hamas believe that because the session was held after the ballot in which Fatah was roundly defeated, its decisions were invalid.
Upon taking up his post last month, new Hamas speaker Aziz Dweik immediately froze those decisions and said they would be reviewed by the new house.
Fatah’s walkout had been designed to buy time but the overwhelming vote was a rude reminder of the faction’s reduced status in the new-look chamber.
In a statement issued after the vote, the Fatah MPs denounced what they called “the violations of the law which have been committed during this session and the manner in which proceedings have been handled” by Dweik.
“This is undermining any base for dialogue and partnership,” they added.
The session was held simultaneously in the West Bank town of Ramallah and in Gaza City, with legislators hooked up by video conference.
During the voting, a dozen Fatah gunmen walked near the Parliament building in Gaza City, firing in the air. However, the protesters eventually headed to a nearby meeting of Fatah leaders, demanding that their party not join a Hamas government. One masked gunman said any Fatah politician joining a Hamas government would be killed.
Israel meanwhile kept up its murderous assaults on Palestinians. Two children and two Islamic Jihad members were killed in an Israeli missile strike on a car in the Al-Toffah area of Gaza City in the evening.
Sources in the Islamic Jihad identified the two members of Al-Quds Brigades, the armed wing of the movement, as Ashraf Shalof, 24, and Moner Sokar, 25. Their car was hit by a missile fired by an Israeli drone.
Eight-year-old Raed Al-Batsh and 15-year-old Ahmed Al-Sweissi, who were standing in Salaheddin Street at the time, were also killed in the massive explosion. Another nine bystanders, most of them children, were wounded.
An Israeli Army spokeswoman confirmed that the military carried out an airstrike targeting a wanted man from Islamic Jihad.
In a separate incident, two other children were killed in an explosion that rocked the Al-Bureej refugee camp in central Gaza.
