GAZA CITY, 5 February 2007 — Gunmen from the rival Hamas and Fatah factions yesterday began withdrawing from Gaza’s streets in the latest attempt to enforce a cease-fire in the strip.
Police replaced gangs of gunmen on rooftops, both sides began to exchange hostages and joint Hamas-Fatah forces patrolled streets to monitor the cease-fire. Gunmen from the governing Hamas movement released some of their Fatah hostages. But many more were still being held.
During weeks of infighting, previous cease-fire agreements have quickly broken down.
Gazans welcomed the relative calm after four days of fighting. “We hope that things will go back to normal,” said Fadi Odwan as he reopened his perfume shop in Gaza City.
Earlier Hamas gunmen attacked bases of Fatah-allied troops with mortars and rocket-propelled grenades, part of a four-day campaign by the group to weaken the security forces loyal to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
In the West Bank, a strategy session by Fatah leaders ended in a shouting match, with some participants demanding Abbas’ party take a tougher stand against Hamas and others pushing to give a mediation effort by Saudi Arabia a chance. In one particularly angry exchange, participants threw an empty cup and a shoe at each other, witnesses said.
Abbas and Hamas’ supreme leader in exile, Khaled Meshaal, are to meet in Makkah tomorrow for reconciliation talks hosted by Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah, the highest-profile mediation effort in several weeks of fighting. Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas also plans to attend the talks, said Ahmed Yousef, a Haniyeh aide.
The Palestinian ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Jamal Shobaki, said the meeting will be open-ended and will focus on hammering out a platform for a national unity government and distributing Cabinet portfolios.
Tomorrow’s talks between Abbas and Meshaal will be their second in a fortnight. An earlier meeting in Damascus on Jan. 21 ended without breakthrough and was followed by a surge in factional violence in which 63 Palestinians have died since Jan. 25.
In Damascus, Meshaal called for both factions to cease fighting for the benefit of all Palestinians. “I call on all our brothers in the Palestinian areas ... to shoulder their responsibilities. We want a lasting calm between us. We should preserve our blood. Dialogue is the only way to resolve our differences,” Meshaal said.
More than 130 Palestinians have been killed in the factional fighting since May. The bloodiest round erupted Thursday, with 28 people killed and more than 230 wounded in four days.
— Additional input from agencies
