From JPost on Monday:
Hamas warned on Monday that it wouldn’t allow the Gaza Strip to slide into anarchy and lawlessness.Already, Fatah media has split between pro- and anti-Dahlan factions. Firas Press features a photo of Dahlan prominently on its home page along with anti-Abbas graphics.
The warning came amid growing tensions among members of the rival Fatah faction. The tensions erupted after Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas decided to cut off salaries of more than 200 Fatah officials and activists suspected of being affiliated with his political rival, Mohamed Dahlan.
The tensions in Fatah spilled into violence over the past week as Dahlan’s supporters attacked Abbas loyalists on a number of occasions.
“Hamas won’t allow the Fatah infighting to lead to anarchy and lawlessness,” said Hamas official Salah Bardaweel. He also denied charges that Hamas was “agitating” tensions between the two rival parties.
Bardaweel’s remarks came in response to a statement by Fatah spokesman Osama Qawassmeh, who claimed that Hamas was responsible for the current dispute between Abbas and Dahlan loyalists.
Abbas’s decision to stop paying salaries to more than 200 officials and activists in the Gaza Strip drew sharp condemnations from senior Fatah officials, including some who are not affiliated with Dahlan, who has been living in the United Arab Emirates ever since he fell out with the PA president four years ago.
Earlier this week, Abbas also decided to stop paying salaries to some 130 community leaders in the Gaza Strip who are also suspected of being affiliated with Dahlan.
Abbas' team is calling Dahlan an "Israeli tool." Hamas has been warming up to the Dahlan faction in Gaza.
Now, Abbas loyalists declared that they will target the Dahlan loyalists in Gaza.
A new group called "Protectors of Groups Against Illegal Dahlan Gangs" in Gaza saif it will fight "Dahlan and his gang" using "the language of spears and breaking of skulls" against them. They accused the Dahlan loyalits of dismembering the Fatah movement and threatening its institutions.
The group said they "decided to fight back immediately with full force against all the excesses and abuses and crimes of the Dahlanis, and will hunt down all the heads and symbols of the treacherous Fatah Dahlani movement at home and abroad who are responsible for the attack on the leaders and institutions of Fatah, and to sabotage the election, and the burning of vehicles, and discrediting the honor of the freedom fighters."
The group listed out the names of 80 Dahlan supporters in Gaza who they say they will be targeting.
Forget Hamas-Fatah unity - Fatah can't even be united with itself!
Perhaps it should be called the IntraFatah?
By the way, keep in mind that even with the budget crisis in the "unity government," there will never be any pressure to stop paying the salaries of terrorists in Israeli jails, terrorists released from Israeli prison in prisoner swaps, and the families of "martyrs." That money is the most sacred part of the PLO budget.