Israel returns Fatah men to Gaza

Israel began deporting Fatah activists back to Gaza yesterday, a day after granting 188 of them temporary asylum in the wake of Hamas-Fatah clashes in the Strip.

Israel originally admitted the men following a request from Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, on the understanding that they would be sent on to the West Bank. It began deporting them after Abbas changed its mind.

Israeli defense sources speculated that Abbas repented his initial decision for fear that it would be perceived as his Fatah movement abandoning its last foothold in Gaza and ceding the Strip to Hamas.

Aides to Abbas confirmed this view. "Fatah officials in Gaza should stay in their posts and should not leave Gaza to Hamas," Fahmi Zaghrir, a West Bank spokesman for Fatah, said yesterday.

However, exceptions will be made for those wanted by Hamas, said Nimr Hamad, an Abbas adviser.

After Hamas seized control of Gaza last summer, Abbas agreed to resettle some 250 of his Gaza loyalists in the West Bank. That proved financially costly: Refugees get $350 a month each, in addition to their government salaries, and the PA covers rent for dozens of the most senior among them.

But beyond that, the 2007 exodus sent a message that Fatah is abandoning Gaza to Hamas. Abbas wanted to send a different message this time, aides said.

Nine Palestinians wounded in the clashes are still hospitalized in Israel, and five Fatah activists apparently will be allowed to relocate to the West Bank. All the rest - most of whom are members of the Hilles clan - will apparently be sent back to Gaza.

Hamas confirmed that it detained the first group of 32 who were sent back to Gaza yesterday, but said it later released all but five.

Ahmed Hilles, 56, is one of the men hospitalized in Israel. He is considered one of the most senior Fatah officials in Gaza. But in an interview yesterday, he blamed Fatah, rather than Hamas, for the clashes.

The conflict, he insisted, "was not a struggle between Fatah and Hamas, but a struggle by Fatah against my clan." Other Fatah members, he charged, could not stand the fact that his clan remains strong even under Hamas rule.

Yet he admitted that the clashes - which killed 11 people and wounded dozens - actually began when armed Hamas men surrounded his house.

Hilles praised his treatment at Soroka Medical Center, saying it was as good "as if there were no struggle between Jews and Arabs."