by Shlomo Cesana, Daniel Siryoti, Eli Leon, Israel Hayom Staff and Reuters
Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon: Claims that Israel will turn into an apartheid state are "nonsense" • Senior Hamas leader Hassan Yousef: Since reconciliation pact was signed, the gap between Fatah and Hamas has widened.
Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon, center, and IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz on Tuesday
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Photo credit: Defense Ministry  |
Claims that Israel will turn into an apartheid state are "nonsense," Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon (Likud) said in an address at the 14th annual Herzliya Conference on Tuesday.
Ya'alon said that instead of a "land for peace" paradigm, there has been "land for terror" and "land for rockets from Gaza" reality.
"The Palestinian Authority, which is considered moderate, denies our right to a national home," Ya'alon said. "If you don't understand that, then you don't understand why the conflict remains unresolved."
"The Palestinian reconciliation is misrepresented," Ya'alon said. "If anything happens as a result of the reconciliation, it will be Hamas' takeover of Judea and Samaria."
Meanwhile, a Hamas leader accused Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah party on Tuesday of jeopardizing the Palestinian reconciliation deal, just a week after a unity government was formed.
Problems between the two sides surfaced just days after the new administration took office, when it failed to pay some 40,000 civil servants hired by Hamas in the Gaza Strip, saying the employees had to be vetted before receiving their salary.
Credit: Reuters
Angry police loyal to Hamas in Gaza ordered the closure of all banks in the coastal enclave until the issue was resolved, dealing a fresh blow to an already sickly economy.
Credit: Reuters
Angry police loyal to Hamas in Gaza ordered the closure of all banks in the coastal enclave until the issue was resolved, dealing a fresh blow to an already sickly economy.
The tensions shifted to the West Bank on Monday, when Hamas said that security forces loyal to Abbas used violence to break up a rally organized by the movement and had assaulted senior Hamas leader Hassan Yousef.
"Since the reconciliation pact was signed, the gap between us and Fatah and the security services has got bigger," Yousef told reporters in Ramallah on Tuesday.
"This is not a unity," Yousef said. "They are doing this to push us to say we do not want reconciliation. We want reconciliation." Yousef accused Abbas' policemen of confiscating green Hamas flags and detaining the group's supporters.
A security source in the West Bank said police intervened after protesters began chanting slogans against the Palestinian Authority.
Yousef denied that and called on the Palestinian Authority to say "whether Hamas was a banned group in the West Bank."
In a sign of the mutual animosity that exists between the two groups, Fatah accused Hamas activists of attacking their supporters in Hebron on Monday, leaving four people needing hospital care.
Azzam al-Ahmed, a senior Fatah official, condemned the closure of Gaza's banks and said the new administration was not to blame for the problem. It could take four months to complete the vetting process, he said.
"We affirm our confidence in the unity government and we reject attempts to doubt it or hold it responsible for the problem," he said. "The government is not responsible for the latest problem [delay of salaries]."
Israeli authorities have urged foreign allies to shun the Palestinian unity government because it enjoys the backing of Hamas, a terrorist group which refuses to recognize Israel's right to exist.
But Western governments, including the United States, have pledged to work with Abbas' new administration.
Ordinary Palestinians had hoped that after years of failed attempts to end the stand-off between the two factions, the creation of a government of technocrats would pave the way to genuine reconciliation and long-delayed elections.
However, tensions in Gaza have only worsened, with Hamas employees furious that while they had not been paid, staff tied to the Palestinian Authority had received a salary.
Hamas itself had struggled to pay its staff in recent months, one of the reasons why the group decided to sign last week's accord with Abbas and dissolve its own government in Gaza.
After Hamas violently seized control of Gaza in 2007, the Palestinian Authority continued to pay its old 70,000-strong workforce in the enclave, even though the majority of them no longer worked.
Some of them are now meant to return to their old duties, but it was not clear how they would be reintegrated, or how long it would take to vet all the civil servants hired by Hamas.
Looking to apply pressure on the new unity government, Hamas police have ordered the closure of all of Gaza's banks, creating a fresh headache for local businesses.
Merchants importing goods from Israel or abroad were seeking new ways to pay their counterparts.
"It is catastrophic if we cannot pay for food and fuel. Israeli merchants won't send goods here for free," said Sami Abu Ahmed, a Gaza businessman. "It will cause a disaster here."
Ehab Bessaiso, a spokesman for the unity government, said the administration was looking to resolve the problems and urged both sides to avoid causing further tensions that "harm our interests and hinders the government from doing its duties."
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