GAZA, Jan 27: Hamas and Fatah exchanged fire on Friday as the long-dominant Palestinian faction was threatened with a violent backlash to its crushing election defeat by the hardline group.

Hamas, whose shock parliamentary election victory changed the face of Palestinian politics, said it would soon hold talks with President Mahmoud Abbas on ‘political partnership’.

But Fatah leaders have rejected a coalition with Hamas and thousands of Fatah supporters, firing into the air, marched in the Gaza Strip in protest at the idea. Thousands of Hamas backers celebrated their victory in separate rallies.

The Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, part of Fatah, issued a statement threatening to ‘liquidate’ the faction’s leaders if they changed their minds and joined a Hamas-led administration.

Acknowledging Hamas’s new standing as a political powerhouse, Mr Abbas told journalists: “We are consulting and in contact with all the Palestinian groups and definitely, at the appropriate time, the biggest party will form the cabinet.”

With Middle East peace talks frozen since 2000, Israel ruled out negotiations with any Palestinian administration involving Hamas, which is sworn to Israel’s destruction and has been behind dozens of suicide bombings.

Israel’s interim Prime Minister Ehud Olmert repeated that message, along with the US-backed roadmap’s call for the disarming of Palestinian fighters, in telephone conversations with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Jordan’s King Abdullah, Mr Olmert’s office said.—Reuters