Fatah spikes Hamas talks offer

Gaza/Washington: Hamas rejected yesterday President Mahmoud Abbas's decree outlawing the group's Executive Force and said the real Palestinian government was still headed by Prime Minister Esmail Haniya of Hamas.

Senior Hamas leader Khalil Al Hayya told reporters in Gaza the Islamist group was ready to hold talks with Abbas's Fatah faction to try to find common ground.

"Hamas rejects the decision by Abu Mazen [Abbas] to outlaw the Executive Force because his decision contradicts the law," Al Hayya said.

"The Fatah central committee decided today not to convene any dialogue, or any contact or any meetings with the Hamas movement," the Fatah committee said in a statement.

In Washington US President George W. Bush and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert pledged to bolster Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, as Israel tightened the diplomatic and economic embargo on Hamas Islamists who control Gaza.

In reaffirming the goal of a Palestinian state alongside a secure Israel, Bush said he and Olmert were working on a "common strategy to fight off" what he termed extremists in the Gaza Strip and elsewhere.

"Our hope is that President Abbas and Prime Minister [Salam] Fayyad will be strengthened to the point where they can lead the Palestinians in a different direction," Bush said before the closed-door White House meeting with Olmert.

Hamas cries foul over aid

Meanwhile, Hamas accused the West of playing politics with Palestinian aid after it resumed assistance to the government in the West Bank while their Gaza bastion remains under Israeli blockade.

The United States and Europe restored direct aid to the Palestinians yesterday in a show of support for president Mahmoud Abbas. "By announcing their political and financial support for the Palestinian [National] Authority, the West is backing an illegimate government," Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said.