By Shlomo Shamir, Haaretz Correspondent, and Haaretz Service A senior Hamas official has accused Fatah strongman Mahmoud Dahlan of collaborating with Israel to carry out Operation Cast Lead, the 22-day offensive in the Gaza Strip.
The official, identified only as a Hamas leader, told Time magazine that Dahlan - Abbas' former national security adviser - helped Israel ahead of the operation in order to weaken the resistance of the Islamist movement, which seized control of the Gaza Strip in 2007.
According to the report, Dahlan went to the Egyptian town of El Arish before the operation actually began and dispatched Fatah members into Gaza to help the Israel Defense Forces hunt down Hamas fighters.
The Hamas officials reportedly accuse a number of other Fatah activists, aside from Dahlan, for collaborating with the intention of killing off Muslims and bringing their own movement back to power in the Gaza Strip.
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http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1062511.htmlRift Between Hamas and Fatah Grows After GazaBy TIM MCGIRK/JERUSALEMReconciling Hamas with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is viewed as a precondition for rebuilding Gaza, but the prospect of unity isn't helped by the news that the Islamist militants are accusing the president's men of collaborating with the recent Israeli offensive — and punishing them by summary execution or shooting off their kneecaps.
The Islamists and Abbas' secular Fatah movement have struggled for control of the Palestinian territories since Hamas won the elections of January 2006, but after Israel's 22-day pummeling of Gaza, their quarrel has become intensely personal. Hamas officials have accused Abbas' former national security chief, Mohamed Dahlan, of colluding with Israelis in advance of the invasion in a bid to weaken Hamas' resistance.
A senior Hamas official alleged to TIME that Dahlan appeared in El Arish, an Egyptian coastal town near Gaza, shortly before the Israel attack, and had sent in Fatah loyalists to "cooperate with the Israelis" in hunting down Hamas commanders. Hamas officials say their allegation is based on interrogation of suspected collaborators accused of helping to pinpoint Hamas' hideouts and weapons caches for Israeli targeting. The objective, say Hamas officials, was to help Israel decimate the Islamists in the hope of reestablishing Fatah control in Gaza. Aides to Dahlan deny the allegations.
Dahlan certainly has a score to settle with Hamas, which routed his U.S.-funded security forces in a 2007 showdown and drove them out of Gaza. And the Islamists have long loathed the Fatah strongman, whom they blame for alleged torture of Hamas detainees in Gaza during the late 1990s — an accusation Dahlan denies. But Hamas appears to be in no mood for unity talks with Dahlan's boss, either, despite Arab efforts to broker a reconciliation. And that could imperil the flow of international aid to Gaza, battered by Israel's 19-month economic blockade and the war that killed over 1,300 Palestinians, wounded 5,300 others and caused over $2 billion in damage. The international community stands ready to deliver hundreds of millions of dollars in aid, but it refuses to channel that aid directly through Hamas, which controls Gaza but is listed as a terrorist organization by the U.S. and European Union. An Abbas administration that excludes Hamas — still the ruling party in the Palestinian Authority's legislature, and whose security control of Gaza remains intact despite the Israeli offensive — is in no position to take charge of reconstruction on the ground. But a unity government with Abbas at its helm could provide the loophole that would allow Western donors to help Gaza rise from the rubble.
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http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1877640,00.html
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