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RAMALLAH (West Bank) Jan 6: Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Saturday declared a Hamas security force in Gaza illegal after a surge in internal violence, a move that quickly stoked political tensions.
Throwing down the gauntlet to Abbas, the governing Hamas militant movement's “Executive Force” said it would double its size to 12,000 personnel.
Hamas created the force after forming a government last March and had defied a previous order by Abbas to integrate personnel into other more well-established security services.
Many recent gun battles on the streets of the Gaza Strip have been between the Hamas force and security men loyal to Abbas and his once dominant Fatah faction.
“The President of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas ... considers the executive force, both officers and individuals, illegal and outlawed,” Abbas's office said in a statement.
The statement said the Hamas force would remain illegal until it complied with Abbas's previous decision.
Speaking hours after the announcement, a spokesman for the Hamas force said its numbers would double from nearly 6,000.
“A decision was taken to increase the number of the executive force to 12,000. We call upon all sincere citizens to prepare themselves to join the force,” Islam Shahwan said.
Shahwan gave no timeframe and did not say where the money to expand the force would come from, but Hamas receives funding from Iran and other Islamist allies.
Abbas's presidential guard by comparison has about 3,700 members. With aid from the United States and its allies, Abbas hopes to expand it to 4,700 members in 12 to 18 months.
Palestinian sources said it could grow to 10,000 members.
Some Palestinians fear civil war in the wake of Abbas's call last month for fresh parliamentary and presidential elections to break a political deadlock with Hamas after the two sides failed to form a unity government.
Hamas trounced Fatah in elections in January 2006 but the two sides have been locked in bitter conflict ever since.
BLOOD: The Interior Ministry said Abbas's order would stir unrest.
“This is a green light to those who have decided to target the executive force and shed the blood of its members,” ministry spokesman Khaled Abu Hilal told a news conference in Gaza.
Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, a senior Hamas leader, said the force was part of the security apparatus because it came under Interior Ministry control.
He said Abbas's order “contradicted the positive atmosphere” at meetings between the two men late this week, where they agreed to keep gunmen off Gaza's streets.
One Abbas aide, Nabil Amr, said the Hamas force was “carrying out armed operations and acted as a militia, and therefore is considered illegal”.
Fatah has accused the Hamas force of killing Colonel Mohammed Ghareeb of the Preventive Security Service and a member of Fatah, and six of his men, after besieging his home in the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiya on Thursday.
Hamas gunmen blamed the shooting on Ghareeb's bodyguards.
In northern Gaza on Saturday, unknown gunmen stormed the empty house of Hamas lawmaker Youssef al-Shrafi and set it ablaze.
GAZA CITY: Palestinian ruling Hamas movement warned president Mahmud Abbas not to make any moves against its armed executive force, after the leader demanded that it be integrated into existing security structures.
Abbas’s demand is “hasty and we warn against making any move, which will be met with force,” Khaled Abu Hillal, spokesman for the Hamas-controlled interior ministry, told a news conference.—Agencies
