Palestinians divided as Hamas seizes Gaza

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A Hamas militant secures the seafront presidential compound, home to the Gaza offices of Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas in Gaza City.

GAZA CITY, June 15 (AFP): Jubilant Hamas fighters were in control of the Gaza Strip Friday, effectively creating an Islamic enclave on Israel's border after routing their secular
Fatah rivals in days of vicious gunbattles.
The Islamist group-branded a terror outfit by
Israel and the West-seized control of the territory just hours after Fatah leader and Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas sacked the government and declared a state of emergency.
The dramatic move, branded a "military coup" by Abbas, effectively splits the Palestinians into two separate entities and has thrown into jeopardy any prospect for a future Palestinian state and peace with Israel.
Masked Hamas fighters overran all security strongholds of Abbas's rival Fatah faction and hoisted their green Islamic flags across Gaza, where at least 113 people have been killed in an explosion of bloodshed over less than a week.
The takeover leaves Hamas in charge of Gaza, a tiny overcrowded strip of land bordering Israel and Egypt, while the secular Fatah movement retains its powerbase in the occupied West Bank.
"All of the headquarters of the security services in the Gaza Strip are under control of the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, including the presidency," Abu Obeida, a spokesman for Hamas's armed wing, told AFP.
The international community voiced increasing alarm about the situation in Gaza, where the clashes have cut power across the territory and sent many of the estimated 1.4 million residents cowering inside for days.
In evidence of their new-found power, victorious gunmen from Hamas's armed wing were inside Abbas's seafront presidential compound, the scene of the final battle that saw the once-dominant Fatah vanquished in Gaza.
Sporadic gunfire rattled across the territory, now sealed off from the outside world by Israel which closed all border crossings until further notice.
Abbas, who has the support of the United States in the deadly standoff, announced Thursday the dismissal of the three-month-old Hamas-Fatah unity government and declared a state of emergency in Gaza and the West Bank.
In a decree, Abbas said he made the move "because of the criminal war in the Gaza Strip, the taking over of the security services of the
Palestinian Authority, the military coup and the armed rebellion by outlaws."
But Hamas dismissed the declaration as "practically worthless" and later announced it was in control of all Fatah-linked security bases in Gaza, including Abbas's sprawling seafront presidential compound.
Abbas's announcement ended a fractious power-sharing accord between his secular Fatah party and the rival Islamist Hamas, locked for months in a deadly feud that has seen more than 260 people killed since December.
Abbas appointed an emergency cabinet and will call for new elections "as soon the situation allows," presidency secretary general Tayeb Abdelrahim said.
But sacked prime minister Ismail Haniya rejected Abbas's move and said Hamas would not declare its own "state" in Gaza.
"The Gaza Strip is an indivisible part of the homeland and its residents are an integral part of the Palestinian people. No to a state in the Gaza Strip only because the state is a whole that cannot be divided," Haniya said .
Hamas's victory in 2006 triggered a crippling Western aid boycott which remains largely in place today, plunging the Palestinians deeper into economic hardship.