Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas sacked a top security chief on Friday who commanded the forces routed by Hamas in Gaza last week, officials said.

Abbas issued a decree firing Rashid Abu Shbak, the head of internal security and a leader in the secular Fatah movement, saying he "is stripped of his tasks as general director."

The order gave no details as to why Shbak was being fired or whether he was being blamed for the June 14 defeat of his forces in the Gaza Strip to Islamist Hamas.

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Abbas had rejected an offer from Abu Shbak to resign a month ago over a feud with a minister of the defunct national unity government, and as factional fighting between Hamas and Fatah escalated into full-scale gun battles on Gaza's streets.

An aide to Abu Shbak told Reuters Abbas had delayed his decision about letting him resign until today.

Long hated by members of Hamas for his role in crackdowns against the Islamic group, Abu Shbak became the target of criticism from his own men after Fatah's forces collapsed in Gaza last week, allowing Hamas to seize full control of the coastal territory.

Half of Gazans evacuated to Egypt by IDF decide to return
Israel evacuated about 60 Palestinian residents of Gaza to Egypt Wednesday night, but half of them refused to enter the country and insisted on returning to Gaza.

At dawn Thursday, 30 of them returned to the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip via the Erez crossing. Under a deal struck with Cairo, all 60 had been bused to Egypt via the Kerem Shalom crossing in vehicles provided by the Israel Defense Forces, an IDF spokesman said.

The Palestinians, who were fleeing Hamas, had spent days at a Gaza border terminal. Most of those evacuated were male Fatah loyalists aged 20 to 30, but there were also three women.

An Israeli security source said the fact that half of the evacuees insisted on returning to Gaza proves that they wanted to take advantage of the situation to go to the West Bank and were not in danger of their life. When they found out that Israel would not let them into the West Bank and they could only go to Egypt, they preferred to go back home.

The source added that Hamas has not been persecuting Fatah activists in Gaza in the last few days, despite the Palestinian evacuees' claims that they feared Hamas would harm them.

Several security sources said the evacuation proved that complaints about Israel keeping women and children stranded at the crossing and preventing their departure were false.

However, some 25 Palestinians seeking to flee Gaza to the West Bank were still stranded on the Gaza side of the Erez crossing Thursday morning.

Truckloads of food enter strip
Humanitarian aid continued coming into Gaza Thursday. Ten trucks carrying oil, legumes and flour contributed by Jordan's King Abdullah entered the strip via the Kerem Shalom crossing, while fuel and cooking gas were delivered via the Karni crossing.

A defense source said that contrary to warnings that Gaza would suffer hunger or a humanitarian catastrophe due to the closing of the crossings, no shortage of food was expected. This, he said, is because large quantities of food have been delivered to the strip since last September, so stockpiles remain.

An IDF force Thursday captured seven unarmed Palestinians who had crossed the border into Israel from northern Gaza. They were taken in for questioning.