Abbas turns up heat on Hamas

Ramallah: Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas swore in a new cabinet yesterday and outlawed Hamas fighters after their violent seizure of Gaza, as Israel came under rocket fire from Lebanon in a new front to the crisis.

Adding to the tensions, Israeli troops moved into the north of the Gaza Strip and responded with artillery fire after two rockets slammed into north Israel from Lebanon.

Israeli Deputy Defence Minister Ephraim Sneh said the army incursion into Gaza was a "preventive" action, in effect creating a buffer zone on Palestinian territory as Hamas consolidated their power there.

After swearing in the 12-member emergency cabinet headed by new prime minister Salam Fayyad, Abbas swiftly took aim at Hamas.

"The executive force and Hamas militias are declared outside the law for having carried out an armed rebellion against Palestinian legitimacy and its institutions," according to a decree issued by the Fatah leader.

Abbas, speaking at the first meeting with his new cabinet, said the government's remit would cover both the West Bank and Gaza. But Hamas dismissed the new government as "illegitimate", a charge which drew bitter response from Fatah.

Hezbollah denial

"There is nothing in the law that says that the president cannot establish an emergency government," Abbas's Press Secretary Mohammad Edwan told Gulf News. "What happened in Gaza was a military coup, and we can now say that Hamas is the new enemy."

Edwan said Fatah would only consider talking with Hamas again if key members including former prime minister Esmail Haniya stepped down. However, a "partnership like before" was off the table. While we were in Makkah and when we were with them in government, Hamas was planning this. We definitely feel cheated."

On a new front, militants in Lebanon fired rockets into northern Israel for the first time in 10 months, with the army saying a Palestinian organisation was behind the strike. Hezbollah said it "denies any relation with the launching of rockets today toward occupied Palestine," according to the group's television station.

Israeli troops retaliated by firing five shells at south Lebanon, security forces said. The Lebanese army discovered a rocket that was set to be launched and prevented it from being fired, Lebanon's military said in a statement.

- With additional inputs from Zoi Constantine, Staff Reporter, in Ramallah