Palestinian factional fighting may spread

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas leader Khaled Meshal meet for an emergency summit in Mecca Tuesday.

from the February 5, 2007 edition

Page 2 of 2

Page 1 | 2

A stairwell gun battle between Hamas and Fatah sent employees throughout the building ducking for cover behind closed doors.

Kanna claims to have extracted confessions from the five abductees, but they were released several hours later as a quid pro quo for Hamas's decision to release abductees of their own in Gaza. The militant says he planned to continue the tactic of kidnapping Hamas members to use as bargaining chips.

On the same day, Nablus council member Fayad al Aghbar – a Hamas politician – was kidnapped at gunpoint live on camera at a branch of the Arab Islamic Bank. Mr. Aghbar was hooded, taken to a refugee camp, and interrogated about his alleged involvement in the Hamas executive force. He was released after being held for 10 hours.

"It was a violent, uncivilized affair," he says, denying the existence of a new Hamas force. And yet, at an anniversary celebration of Hamas's founding several weeks ago, members of its military wing made a rare public appearance. "Hamas is capable of responding to Fatah's aggressiveness in Nablus, but Hamas leadership is not keen to transfer the chaos in Gaza to the West Bank," says Aghbar .

The fighting could draw in Israel

A Hamas activist was kidnapped in the West Bank city of Jenin on Friday, and on Sunday, Hamas offices in Bethlehem were torched, according to the Palestinian Ma'an News service. On Saturday in Nablus, two more Hamas activists were abducted.

A spike in West Bank violence threatens to draw the Israeli army into the fighting because it controls access to Palestinian towns to block suicide bombers and attacks on Jewish settlers in the region.

"If a confrontation is to take place around Ramallah and Nablus," says Ezbeidi, it's likely that the Israeli army will be forced to become involved. "They will find many ways to intervene and that would have destructive consequences for all sides."

To be sure, among the West Bank's major cities, Nablus is perhaps the most notorious as a den of crime where young Fatah militants have been making their own laws long before the outbreak of widespread clashes with Hamas. Prominent Nablus families are reported to be hoarding weapons in case of an escalation of internecine violence in the West Bank.

The recent Nablus kidnappings were condemned as unproductive by Nasser Juma'a, a Fatah legislator from Nablus who used to lead a division of Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades. He accused Hamas of recruiting members in Nablus for its own security force and of "poking the bees' nest" of Fatah armed groups.

If Hamas unveils a new security force in the West Bank, "we will get to a stage like Gaza. It will escalate matters."

Mr. Juma'a says he's hopeful that Mr. Abbas, Mr. Meshal, and Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh will reach an agreement on a unity government this week at talks hosted by Saudi Arabia.

• Safwat al-Kahlout in Gaza City contributed reporting for this story.

1 | Page 2