HELLO!! The clue phone rang and Abbas finally answered it! However, I am not so sure disbanding the coalition government is a good thing - more chaos? more dissent? Who knows! All parties are so unstable...
But more death? Absolutely.
The Palestinian Authority's president is declaring a state of emergency in the Gaza Strip and dissolving a fragile coalition government with Islamic rivals Hamas, a source close to Mahmoud Abbas said Thursday.
The news comes amid fierce gun battle in the Gaza, where intense factional fighting between Hamas and Abbas's Fatah movement has been raging for five days.
Earlier Thursday, Hamas fighters overran the most important security installations controlled by Fatah in the Gaza.
Hamas fighters lead away Fatah supporters from the Preventive Security headquarters in Gaza City on Thursday.
Media quoted witnesses as saying some captured Fatah fighters were dragged from the installation and executed on the street, but their accounts could not be confirmed.
Also Thursday, the southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah fell to Hamas fighters, according to witnesses and security officials allied with Fatah.
More than 90 people have been killed in the recent outbreak of factional violence, including at least 26 on Thursday. Hamas has ignored repeated calls for a ceasefire from Abbas and the international community, as well as its own prime minister, Ishmail Haniyeh.
Later Thursday, Hamas accused Israel of entering the conflict by firing a tank shell at a vehicle in Rafah that Palestinian hospital officials said killed six people, including five children under age 16. The Israeli army denied its forces fired at the area.
Israeli Defence Minister Amir Peretz told a weekly meeting of security officials that Israel would not allow the violence to spread into attacks on southern Israel, according to meeting participants.
Hamas has given Fatah forces in the last big security installation of Gaza until Friday to surrender.
"We are telling our people that the past era has ended and will not return," Islam Shahawan, a spokesman for Hamas's militia, told Hamas radio. "The era of justice and Islamic rule have arrived."
Abbas, for the first time in five days of fierce fighting, ordered his elite presidential guard on Thursday to strike back against the Hamas advance if the presidential compound is targeted.
But it appeared his forces were crumbling fast under the onslaught by the better-armed and better-disciplined Hamas fighters.
Abbas 'options not many'
Abbas would have little ability to enforce martial law under a state of emergency in a region where forces loyal to him have been decimated, said Palestinian coalition government spokesman Mustafa Barghouti.
"His options are not many," Barghouti told CBC News on Thursday in a telephone interview from the West Bank city of Ramallah. "The outcome of any measure will be the separation of the West Bank from Gaza, which is a very dangerous matter."
In Rafah, masked Hamas fighters positioned themselves at checkpoints and various positions in the streets to search for people with weapons and potential Fatah members, said resident Yasmene Moor, who just returned to the town after studying in the United States.
She said residents are already struggling with poverty, food shortages, and a lack of basic services such as water and electricity, but are more concerned the violence could lead to Israel reoccupying Gaza.
"People are very fearful of what will happen," Moor told CBC News on Thursday. "There hasn't been a time in Gaza where people have been able to just live, and be able to have a solid income and provide for their families."
In Ramallah, Fatah officials at Abbas's presidential compound watched in dismay as images of their surrendering comrades in Gaza flashed on television screens, the CBC's Adrienne Arsenault reported.
A Hamas militant takes a position outside the security headquarters. The capture of the Fatah stronghold was a major step forward in Hamas's attempt to take over all of Gaza.
But he added that Palestinians would not forgive either faction for returning to violence.
'They don't want peace'
In response to the Gaza attacks, security forces loyal to Fatah have reportedly been detaining large numbers of Hamas members in the West Bank as the fighting rages in Gaza.
One young Ramallah resident insisted the bitter factional fighting on display in Gaza won't spread to the West Bank, where Hamas forces are significantly weaker.
"They don't want peace," the young man told the CBC's Margaret Evans.
"The West Bank, the people here have a different mind. Gaza, it's another thing."
Hamas and Fatah have been locked in sporadic outbreaks of fighting over the past year, with the most recent violence stemming mostly over who would control key positions and security forces in the fragile three-month-old coalition, which was formed in an attempt to halt the bloodshed.
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