Hamas vows to retaliate

Hebron, West Bank: The Palestine Liberation Organisation headed by President Mahmoud Abbas rejected an offer for dialogue with Hamas yesterday, accusing it of "massacres," as the Islamist movement threatened to retaliate in the occupied West Bank against Fatah forces.

Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri said 150 Hamas supporters have been "abducted" in the West Bank following Hamas's bloody takeover of the Gaza Strip.

"What is happening in the West Bank is a real coup and real terrorism. We will not stand handcuffed against these crimes in the West Bank. We will take all steps to secure an end to these crimes," he said.

In Ramallah, PLO executive committee secretary-general Yasser Abid Rabbo issued a blunt rejection of the olive branch offered by Hamas's exiled political chief, Khalid Mesha'al.

"I tell Mesha'al that there cannot be dialogue with those who commit massacres in Gaza," he said.

Mesha'al said on Friday that his movement's violent takeover of the Gaza Strip was only a bid to resolve a conflict over security powers between the rival factions, which formed a unity government earlier this year.

No to Arab inquiry panel

Rabbo said the PLO has also rejected an Arab League decision to dispatch a commission to investigate Hamas's seizure of power.

"We reject the Arab inquiry commission. This is a flagrant intervention in our affairs," he said. The Arab ministers decided following their Friday talks to set up a commission to investigate the deadly factional dispute.

For a second day yesterday masked Hamas militants raided homes of Fatah securitymen in Gaza, confiscating weapons as looters ransacked the home of late PLO leader Yasser Arafat.

In worsening violence in the West Bank, Fatah gunmen stormed the Palestinian parliament building in Ramallah and attempted to seize an independent lawmaker during the clashes.

In the southern West Bank town of Hebron, around 50 armed gunmen surrounded the city-centre residence of a Hamas member, defiantly firing off rounds, eyewitnesses said.

"I was among the crowd that gathered after the shooting ... Most people were Hamas supporters, but no one did anything," Wajih Abu Sneneh, an eyewitness to Fatah's display of force, told Gulf News. "The Al Aqsa gunmen were crazy to do that in this town," he said.

For Palestinians on the streets, despair and despondency in the face of the fierce fighting overrode security fears.

"I honestly hope the Israelis stage a big incursion soon in the West Bank, so then we will remember who our enemy really is," social worker Amal Al Haymouni, 26, told Gulf News.

"I just don't understand why Palestinians are killing Palestinians, especially when no one really knows what this violence is all about," he said.

Abu Yousuf, an unemployed father of nine, told Gulf News: "I am not with Fatah or Hamas. I am tired of all of this. Even the children are getting involved."

- With additional inputs from agencies