Jerusalem – Hamas has rejected a proposal by the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah, to send an international force to Gaza to enable early elections.
Speaking outside the house of the late Yasser Arafat in Gaza City on Saturday, Ismail Haniyeh, the former Hamas prime minister recently fired by Abbas, called the idea unacceptable.
“We are in the Gaza Strip under Israeli occupation,” he said. “We are in no need for more forces to put more pressure on us. We are able to resolve our internal problems ourselves.”
The Islamic militant group Hamas violently seized control of Gaza in mid-June, routing Fatah and Palestinian Authority forces there. Israel withdrew forces from Gaza and evacuated the Jewish settlements there almost two years ago. But Israel still largely controls the traffic of people and goods in and out of the strip.
In a statement released Saturday, the Hamas military wing warned that any international force would be dealt with as “an occupation force” and that it would be “received with missiles and rockets.” Abbas raised the issue of an international force in a meeting Friday with French President Nicolas Sarkozy in Paris, saying that it could provide the stability and security necessary for elections.
After Hamas seized Gaza, Abbas dismissed the previous Hamas-led Palestinian unity government and formed an emergency Cabinet, made up mainly of political independents and technocrats.
Ghazi Hamad, a spokesman for the deposed Hamas prime minister, said “a forced election will not be the solution,” but he added that if all the factions agreed to new elections, “then there will be no problem at all.”
Meanwhile Saturday, Israeli aircraft sent missiles hurtling down on Gaza three times, killing seven Palestinian militants.
About the time of the second strike, militants fired two crude rockets that struck the southern Israeli town of Sderot, just over the border from the Gaza Strip, the Israeli military said.
Three militants from the Islamic Jihad were killed in the first airstrike on a car in the southern town of Khan Younis. The army said the militants were planning a suicide bombing and had been involved in previous attacks against Israel.
