Hamas Seizes Broad Control in Gaza Strip

By STEVEN ERLANGER

JERUSALEM — Hamas forces consolidated control over much of Gaza on Wednesday, taking command of the main north-south road and blowing up a Fatah headquarters in Khan Yunis, in the south.

In northern Gaza and Gaza City, Hamas military men, many of them in black masks, moved unchallenged through the streets as Fatah fighters ran short of arms and ammunition and abandoned their posts. Hamas controlled all of Gaza City except for the presidential compound of Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah and the Suraya headquarters of the National Security Forces, the Palestinian army. Hamas has surrounded Al Suraya, calling on the occupants to surrender.

The powerful Hamas move to exert authority in Gaza, and the poor performance and motivation of the larger security forces supposedly loyal to Fatah, raised troubling questions for Mr. Abbas and Israel, and left the White House with a dwindling menu of policy options.

Mr. Abbas faces the collapse of Fatah power in Gaza and a putative Palestinian state divided into a West Bank run by Fatah and a Gaza run by Hamas. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel warned of “regional consequences” if Gaza fell under the complete control of Hamas, an Islamist movement that does not recognize Israel’s right to exist. Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said Hamas control of Gaza would limit Israel’s ability to negotiate with Mr. Abbas, as Washington wants.

Hamas spokesmen said the movement had no political goal except to defend itself from a group within Fatah collaborating with Israel and the United States. They said they wanted to bring the security forces under the control of the unity government, in which Fatah agreed to play a part until the current fighting.

Some Israeli security officials say Israel wants to see the West Bank isolated from Gaza, even more so with Hamas in control there. One official suggested that Hamas’s show of strength in Gaza would make it more likely that the Israeli military would intervene there this summer to cut back Hamas’s military power. The Israeli security services say Hamas, which is able to smuggle weapons and explosives from Egypt, is developing a sophisticated army on the model of Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.

The Foreign Ministry spokesman, Mark Regev, said Israel did not see “the implosion of the Palestinian Authority in anyone’s interest.” In Gaza, he added, “the clear strength that Hamas is demonstrating on the ground is a problem for us, and a challenge.”

“It’s a problem for the Palestinians, too,” Mr. Regev said. “Our whole policy is to work with moderate pragmatic Palestinians who believe in peace, and Hamas hegemony in Gaza is not good for Israel, for the Palestinians or for peace.”

Since the election victory of Hamas in January 2006, the United States and Israel have worked to isolate and damage Hamas and build up Fatah with recognition and weaponry. Asked whether the Hamas gains showed the failure of that policy, Mr. Regev said: “I don’t think Israel or the international community should give up on Palestinian moderates. That would be a self-fulfilling prophecy.”

Some in Israel, however, are beginning to ask whether it might make sense to have indirect discussions with Hamas, which is clearly not going away.

In Wednesday’s clashes in Gaza City, Hamas took over the Awdah building, a tall apartment complex where many Fatah leaders lived, causing another Fatah leader, Maher Miqdad, to flee with his family, after at least eight Fatah men were killed. Hamas also took over and burned the main police station, another symbol of Fatah power, and surrounded the main national security headquarters building, Al Suraya.

In northern Gaza, Hamas gave fighters in isolated Fatah military headquarters until Friday at 7 p.m. to surrender their weapons.

In Khan Yunis, Hamas detonated a large bomb in a tunnel under the headquarters of Fatah’s Preventive Security, an elite paramilitary force, killing at least one of those inside and wounding eight more.

Sami Abu Zuhri, a Hamas spokesman, said the movement was defending itself, not reaching for unalloyed power.

“There is no political goal behind this but to defend our movement and force these security groups to behave,” Mr. Zuhri said in an interview.

He insisted that “Hamas did not initiate these attacks, but it was pushed to do so to end crimes by the factions inside Fatah who favor a coup.” He said Hamas “is doing the work that Fatah failed to do, to control these groups,” whom he accused of crimes, chaos and collaboration with Israel and the United States.

Mr. Zuhri said the United States should “sit with the movement at the dialogue table on the basis of mutual respect, respecting the elections.”

Mr. Miqdad accused Hamas of following an Israeli script. “This is an Israeli plan,” he said. “They want to connect the West Bank to Jordan and make Gaza a separate jail. This will be the end of an independent Palestinian state.”

Abdullah al-Aqad, 28, of Khan Yunis, said he joined the national security forces to have a job. He marveled at the speed of the Hamas advance. “We are 70,000 P.A. soldiers, and where are they all?” he asked. “And facing 10,000 Hamas soldiers.”

Mr. Abbas, in Ramallah, on the West Bank, spoke to the exiled Hamas political leader, Khaled Meshal, to try to ease the crisis. “This is madness, the madness that is going on in Gaza now,” Mr. Abbas told reporters.

At least 13 Palestinians were killed on Wednesday and 64 injured, according to Moaweya Hassanein of the Palestinian Health Ministry. He said 59 had died since Monday.

The dead included two workers with the United Nations agency that helps the 70 percent of Gazans who are refugees or their descendants. The agency announced it was curtailing its operations until the fighting stopped.

While Fatah blamed Hamas for the crisis, an Israeli analyst of Palestinian affairs, Danny Rubinstein, said the “primary reason for the break-up is the fact that Fatah has refused to fully share the Palestinian Authority’s mechanism of power with its rival Hamas, despite Hamas’s decisive victory in the January 2006 general elections.”

Fatah “was forced to overrule Palestinian voters because the entire world demanded it do so,” Mr. Rubinstein added. “Matters have come to the point where Hamas attempted to take by force what they believe they rightfully deserve.”

Taghreed El-Khodary contributed reporting from Gaza City and Khan Yunis.