GAZA CITY/RAMALLAH, 20 July 2007 — The Hamas movement yesterday described Palestinian President Abbas’ address before the PLO’s Central Council as “inappropriate” and full of “abusive” terminology, which does not suit a Palestinian president. A Hamas official vowed yesterday to scupper early general elections.
“Early elections are an attempt to bypass the will of the Palestinian people and this attempt is bound to failure. It will fail. We, the Palestinian people, will scupper it,” Mahmoud Zahar told a press conference in Gaza.
In Ramallah, a top PLO body yesterday gave preliminary approval to Abbas to call early presidential and legislative elections. Such a vote would further inflame tensions between Abbas and Hamas, which won Parliament elections in 2006, opposes a new vote.
Zahar spoke a day after Abbas asked the Palestine Liberation Organization central council to approve the holding of early elections following the takeover of Gaza by fighters from the Islamist Hamas. Zahar, a former foreign minister in a Hamas Cabinet, lashed out against Abbas, accusing the moderate leader of conspiring with Israel against his people and saying he was not worthy of being president.
“He conspires with the enemy to assassinate Hamas chiefs by affirming that they have dug their own grave,” Zahar said. “There is an Israeli plan for a Gaza incursion with the agreement of Abu Mazen (Abbas),” he said. “Can a man who allies with the enemy against his people remain the president of these people,” Zahar asked.
He also accused Abbas of being directly responsible for the closure of the Rafah border crossing and the suffering of the estimated 6,000 Palestinians stuck there. Rafah is Gaza’s only border crossing that bypasses Israel and has been closed since the Islamists’ takeover of the territory on June 15. Some 6,000 Palestinians have been stuck on the Egyptian side, unable to return home.
With Hamas in a position to stop voting in Gaza, the balloting would only take place in the West Bank, cementing the division between the two territories the Palestinians want for a future state. It remains unclear whether Abbas is serious about holding a new vote or simply trying to pressure Hamas and isolate it further.
The beleaguered Abbas hopes to strengthen his legitimacy with new elections, but the risks are high.
Hamas could try to disrupt voting in the West Bank, and there is no guarantee Abbas’ Fatah movement would win, even in its West Bank stronghold. If Abbas moves forward with elections, they would likely be held late this year or early next year. Abbas aides said Abbas would run for president again, even though polls indicate his popularity is low and that he’d be neck-and-neck with Hamas’ most popular politician, Ismail Haniyeh, who was deposed by Abbas as prime minister after the Gaza takeover.
In a speech Wednesday, Abbas asked the PLO’s Central Council, a top decision-making body, to endorse his call for early elections. A resolution put together by the council’s drafting committee yesterday asked Abbas to hold new elections, said the head of the committee, Saleh Rafat. The resolution, to be represented to the Fatah-dominated council later Thursday, was likely to the adopted.
In another development, Children raced to help parents collect food from UN aid distribution centers in the Gaza Strip as women sat in the shade near trucks, waiting for their names to be called to receive their food rations. The enclave’s isolation has deepened since the Islamist Hamas group routed their Western-backed rivals to seize control last month. Israel, effectively at war with Hamas, has sealed off key border crossings, stifling trade and forcing thousands of Palestinians to seek handouts from UN aid bodies.
The UN aid agency for Palestinian refugees says that up to 825,000 of Gaza’s 1.5 million inhabitants, classed as refugees, currently receive food rations, and the UN World Food Program aids a further 200,000 people. As UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon prepared to meet fellow members of the Quartet of mediators in Lisbon later yesterday, Palestinians urged the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) to widen its program to feed more people.
— With input from agencies
