Hamas uncovers CIA plots in Occupied Palestine

Hamas: Documents from GSS HQ prove Fatah links to CIA


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Khaled Abu Toameh and AP, THE JERUSALEM POST Jun. 14, 2007

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At least 25 Palestinians were killed and 80 were wounded as Hamas
fighters overran two of Fatah's most important security installations
in the Gaza Strip on Thursday. Witnesses said the victors dragged
vanquished gunmen from the building and shot them to death
gangland-style in the street in front of their families.

The headquarters of the General Security Service, commanded by
Ramallah-based General Tawfik Tirawi, fell to Hamas gunmen. Hamas
said documents it found there prove that the Fatah-affiliated
security apparatus has close ties with the Central Intelligence
Agency (CIA). Hamas said it would show the documents on television in
the coming hours.

Elsewhere, the capture of the Preventive Security headquarters was a
major step forward in Hamas's attempts to complete its takeover of
all of Gaza. Hamas followed up that victory by demanding Fatah
surrender another key security installation.

Meanwhile, media reports said that the headquarters of the
Fatah-allied Voice of Palestine radio station was on fire.

Hamas also overran the southern city of Rafah, the second of Gaza's
four main towns to fall into the Islamic group's hands.

Later Thursday, an explosion rocked Gaza City, and smoke was seen
rising from a security post. Fatah security officials said forces
positioned at the post had redeployed elsewhere and blown it up as
they left, rather than let Hamas take it over.

Earlier, Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah, for
the first time in five days of fierce fighting, ordered his elite
presidential guard to strike back. But his forces were crumbling fast
under the onslaught by the better-armed and better-disciplined
Islamic fighters.

A Hamas military victory in Gaza would split Palestinian territory
into two, with the Islamic extremists controlling the coastal strip
and Fatah ruling the West Bank. Israel was watching the carnage
closely, concerned the clashes might spawn attacks on the southern border.

Defense Minister Amir Peretz told a weekly meeting of security
officials that Israel would not allow the violence to spread into
attacks on southern Israel, meeting participants said.

The battle for the Preventive Security complex brought the day's
death toll to 25 by mid-afternoon, hospital and security officials
said. About 90 people, most of them gunmen but including children and
other civilians, have been killed since a spike in violence Sunday
sent Gaza into civil war.

Fatah said Hamas shot to death seven of its fighters outside the
Preventive Security building. A doctor at Shifa Hospital, who spoke
on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal, said he examined two
bodies that had been shot in the head at close range.

A witness, who identified himself only as Amjad, said men were killed
before their wives and children.

"They are executing them one by one," Amjad said in a telephone
interview, declining to give his full name for fear of reprisals.
"They are carrying one of them on their shoulders, putting him on a
sand dune, turning him around and shooting."

As Hamas took this major battle spoil, the Palestine Liberation
Organization's top body recommended that Abbas declare a state of
emergency and dismantle Fatah's governing coalition with Hamas. Abbas
said he would review the recommendations and make a decision within
hours, said an aide, Nabil Amr.

After the rout at the Preventive Security complex, some of the Hamas
fighters kneeled down outside, touching their foreheads to the ground
in prayer. Others led Fatah gunmen out of the building, some
shirtless or in their underwear, holding their arms in the air.
Several of the Fatah men flinched as the crack of gunfire split the air.

"We are telling our people that the past era has ended and will not
return," Islam Shahawan, a Hamas spokesman, told Hamas radio. "The
era of justice and Islamic rule have arrived."

Sami Abu Zuhri, another Hamas spokesman, heralded what he called
"Gaza's second liberation," after the 2005 disengagement.

Gunmen and civilians were looting the compound, hauling out
computers, documents, office equipment, furniture and TVs.

Hamas had been tightening its ring around the Preventive Security
complex for three days, stepping up its assault late Wednesday, with
a barrage of bullets, grenades, mortar rounds and land mines that
continued until the compound fell. Electricity and telephone lines
were cut, and roads leading to the complex were blocked. Hamas
claimed it confiscated two cars filled with arms sent as reinforcements.

The Islamic group was also training its guns Thursday at three other
key command centers in Gaza City.

In a broadcast on Hamas radio, the Islamic fighters demanded that
Fatah surrender the National Security compound by mid-afternoon.
Light clashes were taking place there when the ultimatum was delivered.

Rocket-propelled grenades were also being fired toward Abbas's Gaza
compound, provoking return fire from his presidential guard. For the
first time since the fighting began, Abbas ordered his guard to go on
the offensive against Hamas at the compound, and not simply maintain
a defensive posture, an aide said.

The intelligence service compound was under siege as well, with Hamas
firing dozens of rocket-propelled grenades in its direction.

In Gaza's south, Hamas trounced Fatah in Rafah, taking over the
Preventive Security building in that town. It was the second main
Gaza city to fall to the Islamists, who captured nearby Khan Younis
on Wednesday.

"I can see the Preventive Security building in front of me. Hamas has
raised its green flags over it," a civilian resident, who identified
himself only as Raed, said by telephone. "There are men carrying away
equipment from inside. ... (The Fatah-allied) National Security men ran away."

Hospitals were operating without water, electricity and blood. Even
holed up inside their homes, Gazans weren't able to escape fighting
that turned apartment buildings into battlefields.

Moean Hammad, 34, said life had become a nightmare at his high-rise
building near the Preventive Security headquarters, where Fatah
forces on the rooftop were battling Hamas fighters.

"We spent our night in the hallway outside the apartment because the
building came under cross-fire," Hammad said. "We haven't had
electricity for two days, and all we can hear is shooting and
powerful, earth-shaking explosions.

"The world is watching us dying and doing nothing to help. God help
us, we feel like we are in a real-life horror movie," he said.

Shaher Hatoum, a nurse at nearby Al Quds Hospital, said the facility
had no electricity, water or blood, and that wounded were propped up
on ward floors. Hundreds of bullets flew through windows, and
fighters ignored the hospital's appeals to hold fire just long enough
to have the generator and water pipes fixed, Hatoum said.

"We are waiting here for our end," Hatoum said.

In Syria, meanwhile, a senior Hamas official warned Fatah to keep the
violence contained to Gaza.

"This is very dangerous for our people," Moussa Abu Marzouk said by
telephone in Damascus, where several top Hamas leaders live in exile.


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