Palestinian Mediators Hopeful After Hamas Postpones Rally in Gaza City : Mideast: Freezing rain forces cancellation. Delay may help ease factional tensions, observers suggest.

Leaders of the militant Islamic movement Hamas called off a rally Friday that they had hoped would draw tens of thousands of supporters into the heart of the Gaza Strip exactly a week after Hamas members clashed there with Palestinian police.

Hamas announced that the rally was postponed until today because a freezing early morning rain had turned many of Gaza’s dirt roads into mud. But Palestinians who have been mediating between Hamas and Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat’s administration welcomed the postponement as a sign that both sides are interested in easing tensions.

“As a man who has been carrying on the reconciliation efforts, I am very glad,” said Dr. Ahmed Tibi, an activist in the PLO’s mainstream Fatah faction. “Today was a test case, and all of us passed it. It is a good sign.”

Friday evening, Hamas announced that a memorial service will be held today in Gaza for Imad Akil, a member of a Hamas militia who is believed to have killed more than a dozen Israeli soldiers before being shot dead by troops a year ago. Akil is a folk hero to many Gazans. His picture is commonly displayed in shops, and audiocassettes detailing his life in heroic terms sell well.

Despite the ongoing efforts of Tibi and other mediators to work out an overall political accord between Arafat and Hamas, negotiations now seem limited to day-to-day crisis management.

“It seems to me that we are suffering from some sort of sickness,” said Dr. Haidar Abdel Shafei, a former Palestinian peace mediator who has become one of Arafat’s harshest non-fundamentalist critics in Gaza. “It is a sort of moral sickness, and it is the product of the quality of Palestinian leadership over the years.”

Abdel Shafei blames what he terms Arafat’s authoritarian leadership style for Gaza’s deepening economic and political crisis.

“He has been doing things one way, and it is far from a democratic way, for so many years that he’s unable to change now,” Abdel Shafei said. “It is endangering the peace process, and it is endangering our prospects for realizing our national objectives.”

Tensions between Hamas and Arafat’s struggling self-governing authority exploded into the first armed clash between Palestinian police and militants on Nov. 18, after thousands of Hamas supporters gathered at a mosque in Gaza City for noon prayers.

Palestinian police reportedly opened fire after some worshipers spilled out of the mosque into the street and began pelting the police with stones and taunting them as tools of the Israeli army.

At least 12 Palestinians died in the ensuing riot, and more than 100 were wounded. Hamas and another extremist group, Islamic Jihad, have termed the confrontation a massacre and are demanding that Arafat accept responsibility for the bloodshed.

Arafat has appointed a commission of inquiry but has blamed Israeli agents, Hamas and Iran for the casualties.

He also staged two rallies supporting him and the Palestinian Authority that he heads, one in Gaza and the other in Jericho.

Thousands attended the rallies, which were meant to show that Arafat’s Fatah faction still dominates the Palestinian streets.

The rallies infuriated Hamas, and its leaders seem determined to contest Arafat for popular support.