Abbas and Haniyeh sign new truce

The leaders of the two main Palestinian factions called for an end to fighting that killed six more people Tuesday and had Palestinians wondering whether their society was hurtling toward civil war.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, of the Fatah movement, and Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, of the Islamic militant group Hamas, signed a fresh cease-fire agreement aimed at stopping back-and-forth clashes.

It was not clear, however, whether the latest attempt to quell unrest would succeed, amid rising tension driven largely by Abbas’ call for early elections that could undercut Hamas’ upset victory in January’s polls.

Under the agreement, both sides are to withdraw their forces from the streets, leaving only ordinary police officers to maintain law and order. The deal, brokered by Egyptian officials, was announced separately in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

The accord capped a long day of violence that had left an earlier attempted cease-fire a shambles and had prompted the Education Ministry to close schools today.

The day began with a shootout at Gaza City’s biggest hospital that left a Hamas security officer dead, and continued with an ambush on a busy downtown street that claimed the lives of two members of the Fatah-linked intelligence service and wounded seven bystanders, including five children.

Two other Fatah members were abducted and killed, and their bodies left on a street near the hospital. A second Hamas security officer died late Tuesday of wounds suffered in the hospital shootout.

Many stores and other businesses in Gaza were shuttered by midafternoon.

The escalating violence occurred against a backdrop of verbal jousting between Haniyeh and Abbas.

Abbas issued a statement saying that the violence over the last few days had “harmed the Palestinian struggle and the heroic image it built over the last 10 years.” Abbas, who was in the West Bank city of Ramallah, said “dialogue is the only way to achieve our national goals.”

Shortly afterward, Haniyeh addressed Palestinians in a broadcast from the Gaza Strip.

“We are all Palestinians in the same boat and we are interested in seeing this boat reach safe shores,” Haniyeh said in an hour-long speech that mainly served as his rebuttal to Abbas’ call for early elections.

Haniyeh, who became prime minister in March after Hamas’ parliamentary election victory, rejected the call for new balloting and insisted that his government was legitimate.

“The call for elections is not constitutional,” Haniyeh said. “We refuse this call, and we stress the need to respect the choice of the Palestinian people.”

Sporadic shootouts have broken out in Gaza and the West Bank since Hamas’ election victory set off the power struggle with the once-dominant Fatah. But the two sides have generally stopped fighting after a day or two, even when clashes have been fierce. In early October, confrontations left eight people dead in a single day.

The question on the minds of Palestinians this time is whether the parties can rein in their gunmen before it is too late.

Palestinians have known factional rivalries throughout much of their quest for an independent state. But they generally view civil war as a line too costly to cross. Even amid the recent violence, most Palestinians seemed to view full-scale civil breakdown as unlikely, though they are growing more nervous.

“We are not there, and I don’t think we will get there,” said Bassam Nasser, who runs the Palestinian Center for Democracy and Conflict Resolution in Gaza City. “We are in one of the hardest events of political violence. But I don’t think the parties will go down into civil war.”

Analysts said the two sides probably would conclude that they risked losing too much in the way of lives and public support if they kept up street fighting that neither seemed poised to win decisively.

“Both groups are armed, and both understand that both sides stand to lose,” said George Giacaman, director of the Palestinian Institute for the Study of Democracy in Ramallah.

Still, all agree that the current circumstances appear to be more perilous than those that gave rise to earlier clashes. The power struggle has begun to assume the tones of a fight for existence, and no one is quite sure to what degree the political leaders can effectively control the gunmen.

In addition, the breakdown in political talks between Fatah and Hamas could send the message that there is no peaceful way around the political impasse.

“That’s a dangerous recipe for civil war,” said Samir Awad, chairman of the political science department at Birzeit University near Ramallah.

For now, the battle has been limited to a relatively small number of armed men -- many of them members of the various government security forces -- while ordinary Palestinians have watched from the sidelines.

“I can’t send my sons and daughters to school. It’s too risky,” said Mohammed al Hajj, 45, who owns a computer shop in Gaza City. “As a businessman, I have to tell Hamas and Fatah that we have enough trouble caused by the Israelis.”

Israel’s prime minister, Ehud Olmert, traveled to Jordan on Tuesday for an unannounced visit with King Abdullah II. A brief statement by Olmert’s office said the two discussed bilateral issues, recent developments in the Palestinian Authority “and the broader regional situation.”

The latest round of Palestinian violence erupted after Abbas announced Saturday that he would call elections as a way to end the deadlock with Hamas over the formation of a new government.

He said that only a new government would satisfy the West and end a months-long international aid embargo against Hamas, which the United States and Europe consider a terrorist group.

Although Abbas said efforts to negotiate a power-sharing arrangement with Hamas had proved fruitless, he left open the possibility that the two factions could reach agreement. He did not set a date for the vote, fueling speculation that the call for elections was a pressure tactic.

The talks have failed mainly over the refusal of Hamas to meet Western demands that the Hamas-led government recognize Israel, renounce violence and abide by past Israeli-Palestinian agreements.

But Hamas points to its January election win as a mandate for change, and is convinced that Abbas is vulnerable if elections take place. He has limited grass-roots support and heads a party that is seen as corrupt and out of touch by many Palestinians who voted for Hamas.

A recent poll showed Abbas and Haniyeh running neck and neck in a hypothetical contest.

Nasser, of the Gaza democracy center, said both sides had demonstrated poor leadership during the current crisis. He faulted Abbas for failing to consult with Hamas and other factions before issuing the call for elections, and charged that Hamas leaders have at times allowed their movement’s gunmen to run amok.

But he said the leaders could cool tensions quickly if they were determined.

“It is so easy for them to end it,” Nasser said. “But it is still so easy for the events to start again.”

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ellingwood@latimes.com

Times staff writer Ellingwood reported from Jerusalem and special correspondent Abu Alouf from Gaza City. Special correspondent Maher Abukhater in Ramallah contributed to this report.