Captain Ed on the incident at the Karni crossing...
Hamas Initiating Civil War
Hamas attacked a Gaza checkpoint run by Fatah in conjunction with the Israelis earlier today, killing eight and engaging both Fatah and IDF personnel. The escalation comes a day after the resignation of the Interior Minister and appears to announce Hamas’ intention to seize power by force:
Hamas gunmen on Tuesday ambushed rival Fatah forces near a key crossing along the Israeli border, killing eight people in the deadliest battle yet in three days of factional fighting.
The incident briefly drew Israeli gunfire, threatening to drag Israel into the conflict.
At least 18 people have died in the infighting, bringing life in Gaza to a standstill and pushing the fragile Palestinian unity government closer to collapse. Hamas and Fatah formed the union in March with the aim of ending months of violence.
Monday’s fighting erupted when Hamas gunmen approached a training base used by Fatah forces that guard the crossing, officials said. The base was set up in part by an American security team sent to train Palestinians on how to check cargo and baggage at crossings.
The Hamas force attacked the base with rockets, rocket-propelled grenades and mortars, said Ahmed al-Kaisi, spokesman for the pro-Fatah Presidential Guard, which guards the crossing under an agreement with Israel. “We consider this a serious provocation and a crime committed in cold blood,” al-Kaisi said.
The attack occurred at the Karni crossing, which Israel closed after the attack. This puts a huge crimp in the already collapsing Gaza economy. Karni is the main entry point for goods imported into Gaza and the one checkpoint that Israel and the PA had fairly secured. The Hamas attack assures Gazans that they will starve even more quickly than before.
That appears to be a deliberate motivation. This was no impromptu clash between cranky militia patrols, which according to the truce between the two factions shouldn’t exist anyway. The Hamas attackers brought rockets and mortars, which means they had planned this mission ahead of time. When Fatah sent more security personnel to assist, they shot the vehicle and forced it off the road, and then surrounded the men in the car and riddled them with bullets. The only reason the Hamas unit retreated was because the IDF showed up with tanks, and their courage apparently only extended to an unannounced attack.
Both Ismail Haniyeh and Mahmoud Abbas spent Naqba Day talking about “national unity” and the need to remain focused on the struggle with Israel. On the day of mourning for the partition of Palestine, though, the actions of Hamas shows that there is no national identity for the Palestinians — only factions of terrorists with civilian Arabs stuck in the middle, victims of their own leadership choices. Given Gaza and the authority to run it, the Palestinians have proven unable to rise to the occasion in several opportunities.
Link: http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/archives/009972.php