Hamas Fighter Killed in Gaza Despite Truce

Hisham Abu Taha, Arab News

GAZA CITY, 31 January 2007 — A Hamas commander in the Gaza Strip was shot dead yesterday despite a truce between feuding Palestinian factions and Israeli planes retaliated to Monday’s Palestinian attack by bombing a tunnel at the Kerni border crossing between Egypt and Gaza.

Hospital officials in the town of Khan Younis said Hussein Shabasi was shot in the head in the first killing in the territory since a cease-fire went into effect on Monday night.

A spokesman for Hamas’ armed wing said he was killed by the Preventive Security Service, most of whose members belong to President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah faction. The security service denied any connection with his death.

The truce was agreed at a meeting between Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh and Rawhi Fattuh, a senior aide to Abbas, after a wave of infighting that erupted Thursday killed 33 Palestinians including children. More than 110 were wounded.

Speaking after the meeting, Foreign Minister Mahmoud Zahar said both Fatah and Hamas had agreed to take all gunmen off the streets of Gaza and the cease-fire would take effect at 3 a.m. The agreement stipulated the removal of all checkpoints from Gaza streets and the immediate release of all abducted persons.

“I hope that calm and stability will last so that we can resume dialogue over formation of a national unity government,” Haniyeh said after the truce took effect. Previous cease-fires, including one last month, have been short-lived.

There were no casualties from the Israeli airstrike. “The intention of the tunnel was to be used in order to carry out a terror attack against Israeli civilians in the immediate future,” an army spokesman said in Jerusalem.

The strike was the first since a Nov. 26 cease-fire came into effect in Gaza, under which Israel withdrew its troops from the territory and Palestinians were to stop firing rockets into the Jewish state. The strike also cast a shadow over tentative moves to revive the stalled Middle East peace process, days before a meeting of the key international sponsors of the so-called road map.

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s personal envoy was quoted as saying yesterday that Russia wants the Middle East Quartet due to meet on Feb. 2 to lift a blockade on Western aid to Palestinians. Russia is part of the Middle East Quartet that includes the United States, the United Nations and the European Union.

“Russia has always opposed the blockade and we count on the Quartet listening to our point of view,” Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Saltanov said in an interview with the Interfax news agency. The freeze on aid was introduced last year when Hamas came to power in the Palestinian territories.