Civil war looms larger in Palestine today:
Tensions were at their highest in a decade and followed months of failed talks to form a unity government between the ruling Hamas Islamist faction and Abbas’s once-dominant Fatah.
At least 32 Hamas supporters were wounded by gunfire in the West Bank city of Ramallah, hospital officials said.
The violence broke out after Hamas, which controls the Palestinian Authority, accused a Fatah strongman and Abbas’s presidential guard of trying to kill Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh outside the Rafah border crossing with Egypt.
“We know who opened fire (on Haniyeh’s convoy) and they will be punished hard. From now on they will never relax and they will never sleep tight in their homes,” said Hamas leader and Palestinian Foreign Minister Mahmoud al-Zahar.
Pity the Palestinian people caught between the endemic corruption of Fatah and the hate filled zealotry of Hamas.
There must be a better way forward.
Gene adds: In case anyone thought otherwise:
Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh said Friday that he and his followers chose to be in the Hamas movement to be shahids (martyrs) and sacrifice their lives for Allah and not to be ministers.
