The Palestinian interior minister quit in frustration Monday over a surge in factional violence in Gaza that has cast the future of the Palestinian power-sharing government in doubt.
After about a month on the job, Hani Kawasmeh said he was stepping down because neither side of the factional divide, Fatah or Hamas, would give him the power necessary to integrate competing security agencies into a unified force capable of re-establishing order in the increasingly lawless Gaza Strip.
The resignation of the relatively independent official dealt a blow to the Fatah-Hamas unity government that was formed in March. The departing minister’s angry accusations of a lack of support underscored how difficult it has been to get the rival groups to compromise on the central issue of who controls the estimated 80,000 men under arms in the Palestinian territories.
The discord has had lethal consequences in Gaza, where four more people, one of them a civilian, were killed in factional clashes Monday, bringing the death toll to nine since violence erupted Sunday. Masked gunmen fired a barrage of bullets in the streets, which were empty of residents, while other fighters choked off roads and surrounded buildings, either to attack or protect.
Senior Fatah and Hamas officials emerged Monday night from a three-hour emergency meeting to declare their readiness to order their street commanders to pull back. Palestinian Cabinet spokesman Ghazi Hamad said the two warring factions also reaffirmed their pledge “to make this [unity] government stand.”
Gunfire died down in Gaza’s streets after the meeting, but checkpoints remained in place.
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The proximate cause of the latest bloodletting, the worst of the power-sharing government’s tenure, was Fatah’s deployment Thursday of thousands of its security officers without Hamas agreement.