Fatah

On the first Friday since Israel ended its 22-day offensive in the Gaza Strip, some Palestinians gathered for weekly mass devotions by spreading prayer rugs on the streets outside the wreckage of mosques devastated by missile strikes. Among those not making a public appearance, however, was the top local political leader of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh. Rumors had been rife that Haniyeh, an Islamic religious scholar, would emerge from weeks of hiding to deliver a sermon.

For nearly five years Mahmoud Abbas had moved timidly in the shadow of his charismatic predecessor, the late Yasser Arafat. His demeanor matched his somber dark suits, his rambling speeches lulled audiences to sleep, and his indecision led the Palestinians' preeminent political movement to defeat and disarray. Over the last week, however, a more forceful Abbas stepped forward. After cajoling the aging leaders of his Fatah movement to hold its first convention in two decades and put their jobs on the line, he fended off an assault by younger activists on his own record.

Something different is happening among the Palestinians. Their political leaders and civil servants are spending more time planning for a Palestinian state than criticizing the Israelis for their intransigence. During the first congress of the leading Palestinian movement, Fatah, in 20 years, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas refused to be dragged into belligerent rhetoric. He insisted that although Palestinians have the right to use all forms of resistance, he chooses diplomacy.

Yasser Arafat's coattails were long enough to sweep a solid majority of candidates from his Fatah political movement into the first elected Palestinian self-governing council, partial returns showed Sunday. As results trickled in throughout the day from Saturday's vote, a clear pattern emerged of Fatah's slates of candidates doing well in virtually every district of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

In the last four months, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat signed a key peace agreement with Israel, mourned the slaying of his Israeli partner, Yitzhak Rabin, assumed control of Arab towns in the West Bank and became the first freely elected president of his people. Arafat won Saturday's election with 88% of the vote, exposing the weakness of opposition groups such as the extremist Hamas organization and effectively carving the Israeli-Palestinian peace process in stone. Now comes the hard part.

Palestinian police moved against renegade gunmen of the PLO's Fatah faction in the West Bank town of Nablus on Sunday, just a week after Israel handed control of the city to PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat. After a tense standoff that lasted several hours, Ahmad Tabouk, leader of the Fatah Hawks militia, surrendered to police late Sunday night, sources in Nablus reported. About two dozen of Tabouk's gunmen reportedly were arrested earlier in the day after engaging in a brief shootout with police.

Israel's army suspended its troop redeployment in the West Bank for 24 hours Thursday after gunmen from PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction freed two Israeli border policemen they had kidnaped and held overnight. The incident in the West Bank town of Janin kept high-level teams of Israelis and Palestinians working through the night to avoid a breakdown in the complex security arrangements being made as part of Israel's military pullback in the region.

Re "Self-defense vs. slaughter," Opinion, March 8 Tim Rutten's writings have made me grateful that he is a columnist for The Times, so I regret that his column on Gaza is one with which I cannot agree. More than 100 Palestinians in Gaza were injured or killed, while three people were killed in Israel by Hamas rocket fire in this latest struggle. The number of Palestinians killed in these battles over the years far outnumbers Israelis killed. In democratic elections in Gaza, Hamas won over Fatah and should, at the least, be seated at the table with the United States and Fatah if we genuinely believe in real democratic elections.

Nine people were killed Saturday as Hamas routed a well-armed clan loyal to the rival Fatah group from its urban stronghold in the worst flare-up of internal Palestinian strife this year. Hospital officials said 72 people, including 12 children, were wounded as mortar shells and machine-gun fire rattled Gaza City's crowded Shijaiyah neighborhood during the daylong battle. Among the injured was clan leader Ahmed Hillis, who fled into Israel with dozens of his followers.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas refused to grant West Bank asylum to forces who fled weekend factional fighting in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, despite fears for their safety. Abbas ordered nearly 200 fighters back to Gaza from Israel, insisting that Fatah must retain a presence in the territory, which has been controlled by Hamas since a violent takeover in June 2007. Hamas confirmed that it detained the first group of 32 who were sent back, but said it later released all but five of them.