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Palestinian militants end truce, destroy UN club

GAZA CITY: Palestinian militants marked the end of a truce agreement Sunday by firing a barrage of rockets towards southern Israel and detonating explosives in a beachfront UN club in Gaza City.

The targeting of both Israel and the United Nations served as a double blow to the crumbling authority of Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, who had issued a desperate appeal to tackle what he acknowledged was a state of anarchy. The main Palestinian factions had signed up to a truce brokered by Abbas in March, agreeing to “cool down” their campaign of attacks against Israel at least until the end of the year.

Abbas had strong hopes that the militants would agree to extend the truce but a recent upsurge in rocket attacks, prompting Israel to reassert control over parts of the northern Gaza Strip, had illustrated that its days were numbered.

Confirmation that the factions no longer feel bound by the so-called “tahdiya” came with statements from three groups, which claimed credit for a series of rocket attacks into Israel.

A statement from Hamas’s armed wing, the Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigade, cited Israel’s decision last week to impose a “no-go zone” in northern Gaza which renegades had been using to fire rockets into the south of the Jewish state. The army warned that anyone who strayed into the area would be regarded as a legitimate target, effectively reasserting control over an area which had housed three Jewish settlements until their evacuation over the summer.

Two Palestinian civilians living just outside the zone were killed on Saturday evening by Israeli fire. “We confirm that these crimes will not go unpunished and will be answered at the appropriate time and place,” the Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigade said in a statement. “The establishment of a security zone is a violation of our liberated land and we say, as we have said before, that it will be a new Shebaa Farms,” it added in reference to an area on Israel’s border with Lebanon which has been the regular scene of rocket attacks.

Hamas’s overall leader Khaled Meshaal said in Damascus last month that Hamas would not renew the truce “while our people are surrounded”. The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades and the armed wing of Islamic Jihad said in a joint statement that they had fired two rockets at the southern Israeli town of Sderot while the Popular Resistance Committees said in a separate statement that it had fired rockets at army posts and at a kibbutz in Israel. An Israeli military spokeswoman confirmed that rockets had been launched but said there were no reports of them hitting their targets. “Several launches were identified but nothing landed inside Israel,” she said.

The armed wing of Hamas, responsible for the majority of attacks during the five-year uprising, also confirmed that it was ending its adherence to the truce.

The resumption of attacks by Al-Aqsa, a group nominally loyal to the ruling Fatah faction, is particularly embarrassing for Abbas and highlights the deep divisions within the movement which had huge problems just on agreeing a list of candidates for parliamentary elections on January 25.

Abbas has been a consistent critic of rocket attacks and has urged the factions to stop regarding themselves above the law.

Rather than reverse a tide of lawlessness since Israel left Gaza in September, Abbas has presided over a worsening of the chaos.

Foreign aid workers based in Gaza have increasingly become targets of the wrath of disaffected youngsters drawn to the armed factions. A recent spate of kidnappings has prompted the United Nations to withdraw all but a handful of its foreign staff.

However, the organisation was still the target of gunmen who stormed the UN beachfront club overnight, beat up a lone security guard on duty and then detonated a number of hand grenades, according to Palestinian security sources.

The UN club, which overlooks the Mediterranean, is the only place which serves alcohol in the territory. While thousands of Palestinians are employed by the United Nations in Gaza, the number of international staff has been slashed in recent months as a result of the mounting security crisis. afp

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