Hamas planning to move militia in bid to undermine Fatah

Ismail Haniyeh, the Palestinian Prime Minister, made it clear yesterday he was determined to maintain - and if needed expand - the force deployed last week by his Interior Minister, Said Siyam, despite a clear previous veto by the Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas.

The force was temporarily withdrawn from most Gaza streets yesterday after a series of kidnappings, shootings and bombings by rival armed groups which have claimed the lives of 10 Palestinians in all this month.

But Mr Haniyeh used a speech at a mosque in the Gaza town of Jabalya to disclose that 2,000 regular police uniforms already prepared for the new armed force - who are currently dressed in black T-shirts and combat fatigues - would be distributed to the men, many of whom were militants in Hamas's military wing.

Mr Haniyeh divulged the plan as he sounded a sharply negative note - which stopped short of explicit rejection - about Mr Abbas's ultimatum to Hamas. On Thursday Mr Abbas warned that he will put a document envisaging a two-state solution to a referendum unless Hamas agrees to it within 10 days.

Saying he had "spoken to" Mr Abbas about the policing plans, Mr Haniyeh said that if the interior ministry "asked for 4,000 men I will give them 4,000. There will be no retreat from this, no going back."

As a unit of the "implementation force" drilled at a temporary base in the Zeitoun suburb of Gaza City, Youssef al-Zahar, a leader of the force, said that the "first phase" of the deployment had always been planned for between a week and 10 days. "We have shown the people there is a force that can help them and they now know that they can call on them if they need to."

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http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article620210.ece