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Bloody Day in Gaza Raises Civil War Fears    [

    Secret UN Report Condemns US for Middle East Failures
    By Rory McCarthy and Ian Williams
    The Guardian UK

    Wednesday 13 Friday 2007

Envoy's damning verdict revealed as violence takes Gaza closer to civil war.

    The highest ranking UN official in Israel has warned that American pressure has "pummelled into submission" the UN's role as an impartial Middle East negotiator in a damning confidential report.

    The 53-page "End of Mission Report" by Alvaro de Soto, the UN's Middle East envoy, obtained by the Guardian, presents a devastating account of failed diplomacy and condemns the sweeping boycott of the Palestinian government. It is dated May 5 this year, just before Mr de Soto stepped down.

    The revelations from inside the UN come after another day of escalating violence in Gaza, when at least 26 Palestinians were killed after Hamas fighters launched a major assault. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, head of the rival Fatah group, warned he was facing an attempted coup.

    Mr de Soto condemns Israel for setting unachievable preconditions for talks and the Palestinians for their violence. Western-led peace negotiations have become largely irrelevant, he says.

    Mr de Soto is a Peruvian diplomat who worked for the UN for 25 years in El Salvador, Cyprus and Western Sahara. He says:

• The international boycott of the Palestinians, introduced after Hamas won elections last year, was "at best extremely short-sighted" and had "devastating consequences" for the Palestinian people
  
  
• Israel has adopted an "essentially rejectionist" stance towards the Palestinians
  
  
• The Quartet of Middle East negotiators - the US, the EU, Russia and the UN - has become a "side-show"
  
  
• The Palestinian record of stopping violence against Israel is "patchy at best, reprehensible at worst"

    Mr de Soto acknowledges in the report that he is its sole author. It was meant only for senior UN officials, and its wording is far more critical than the public pronouncements of UN diplomats. Last night, Mr de Soto, who is in New York, told the Guardian: "It is a confidential document and not intended for publication."

    In January last year, the Quartet called on the newly elected Hamas government to commit to non-violence, recognise Israel and accept previous agreements. When Hamas refused to sign up to the principles, the international community halted direct funding to the Palestinian government and Israel started to freeze the monthly tax revenues that it had agreed to pass to the Palestinians. Several hundred million dollars remain frozen.

    Mr de Soto, who had opposed the boycott, said this position "effectively transformed the Quartet from a negotiation-promoting foursome guided by a common document [the road map for peace] into a body that was all-but imposing sanctions on a freely elected government of a people under occupation as well as setting unattainable preconditions for dialogue".

    The EU said yesterday that there was an imminent risk of civil war if fighting went on, and UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon urged support for Mr Abbas's efforts "to restore law and order".

    In the heaviest day of fighting in Gaza for months, Hamas appeared to make its first concerted effort to seize power in Gaza. There was a wave of co-ordinated attacks, which appeared to overwhelm the larger but less effective Fatah force. "Decisiveness will be in the field," said Islam Shahwan, a spokesman for the Hamas military wing.

    Fatah's central committee called an emergency meeting in Ramallah, in the West Bank, and said it would suspend the activities of its ministers in the government. Fatah would pull out of the government if the fighting failed to stop, it said.

    For the first time in several weeks, fighting spread to the West Bank when Fatah gunmen attacked a Hamas television studio in Ramallah and kidnapped a Hamas deputy cabinet minister from the city.

    The day began with a rocket attack on the private house in Gaza of Ismail Haniyeh, the prime minister and a Hamas leader. He was in the building but was not hurt. Fighting spread across Gaza City and within hours Hamas fighters issued warnings over loudspeakers calling on all Fatah security forces to pull out of their bases and return home. At about 2pm Hamas gunmen seized control of several small Fatah bases and one large base in northern Gaza, where there were heavy casualties when Hamas fighters fired mortars and rocket-propelled grenades at the compound.

    Several Fatah officers complained that they had received no orders during the day. Mr Abbas tried calling for a truce, and later Fatah ordered its officers to fight back.

 

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    Bloody Day in Gaza Raises Civil War Fears
    By Nidal al-Mughrabi
    Reuters

    Tuesday 12 June 2007

    Gaza - In what looked ever more like civil war, the forces of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas battled supporters of the Islamist prime minister across Gaza on Tuesday, the bloodiest day of factional fighting in months.

    At least 27 people were killed and 70 wounded, hospital officials said, taking to 47 the number of dead in the coastal enclave since Saturday. Early on Tuesday, the Gaza homes of both Abbas and Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas were fired on.

    The largest force loyal to Abbas, who is favored by Western powers, was ordered onto the streets to defeat what his secular Fatah group called a "bloody coup" by Hamas Islamists after Hamas gunmen stormed Fatah bases in the Gaza Strip.

    Hamas later appeared to have control of one major Fatah base in the north and casualty data suggested it had the upper hand more widely. Fatah leaders threatened to quit a three-month-old unity government with Hamas if there was no immediate truce.

    The European Union said there was an imminent risk of civil war if fighting went on, and U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon urged support for Abbas's efforts "to restore law and order."

    Haniyeh and Abbas both called for restraint and talks but, as each side accused the other of siding with their Israeli adversaries, there was little sign of fighters paying heed.

    The head of an Egyptian delegation in Gaza that saw its latest truce shot down on Monday, urged civilians to rally on Wednesday morning to show support for a new ceasefire.

    Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, an arch-foe of Hamas, said for the first time that "serious consideration" must be given to posting international peacekeepers in Gaza, from which Israel withdrew troops and Jewish settlers two years ago.

    "If the Gaza Strip ultimately falls to Hamas, this will be of great regional significance," he said, but added Israel could not enter Gaza to fight Hamas to help Abbas's "pragmatists".

    Battles

    Hamas gunmen swept down on Fatah posts, residents said. At one stage, Hamas fighters gave Fatah forces half an hour to evacuate bases - an unprecedented ultimatum.

    Intense gunfire and explosions were later heard from a base of Abbas's National Security Forces in Gaza City. Reinforcements for the NSF moved in vehicles through the deserted streets.

    "Advance!" NSF commanders ordered, as Hamas radio stations were briefly jammed by music praising Fatah military leaders.

    "Confront the seekers of the coup!"

    At least 16 people were killed in ensuing evening battles, according to hospital officials - including 11 in one clash that Hamas said gave it control of a major NSF base in the north of the Strip. Hamas officials said they lost at least nine men while Fatah sources said their losses were at least 16 dead.

    Abbas, successor to Yasser Arafat, convened Fatah's Central Committee in his West Bank base. It issued a statement saying: "The Central Committee decided that its ministers will not participate in the government if there is no ceasefire now."

    If they resign, along with some independent ministers, Abbas could fire the government and try to rule by decree. A new cabinet would need approval from the Hamas-led parliament.

    Most of the Gaza Strip's 1.5 million inhabitants took refuge in their homes. Crammed into a 45 km (27 mile) sliver of coast and surrounded by an Israeli security cordon, they have little chance to flee through the restricted main crossing into Egypt.

    "I think we are in Iraq, not in Gaza," Ammar, a 40-year-old father of six, said. "Snipers on rooftops killing people. Bodies mutilated and dumped in the streets in very humiliating ways.

    "What else does civil war mean but this?"

    Since Hamas won an election in January 2006, boosted by its support among the poor of Gaza, more than 600 Palestinians have been killed in factional fighting, according to one estimate.

    After some months of relative calm, fighting flared up again last month before easing following a truce brokered by Egypt.

    The United States has been helping train and arm Abbas's forces, citing the Fatah leader as a moderate committed to peace and a counterweight to Hamas, which has ties to Iran and Syria.

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    Additional reporting by Mohammed Assadi and Ali Sawafta in Ramallah and Adam Entous, Jeffrey Heller, Ori Lewis and Alastair Macdonald in Jerusalem.