Israel lets Fatah troops into volatile Gaza

JERUSALEM – Israel this week allowed the Palestinian party Fatah to bring into the Gaza Strip as many as 500 fresh troops trained under a U.S.-coordinated program to counter Hamas, the Islamic movement that won Palestinian parliamentary elections last year. Fighting between Hamas and Fatah has left about 45 Palestinians dead since Sunday.

The forces belong to units loyal to the elected Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas, a moderate Fatah leader whom the Bush administration and Israel have sought to strengthen militarily and politically. A spokeswoman for the European Union Border Assistance Mission at Rafah, where the fighters crossed into Gaza from Egypt, said their entry Tuesday was approved by Israel.

The troops’ deployment illustrates the increasingly partisan role that Israel and the Bush administration are taking in the volatile Palestinian political situation. The effort to fortify the armed opposition to Hamas, which the United States and Israel categorize as a terrorist organization, follows attempts to isolate the Islamic movement internationally and cut off its sources of financial aid.

Israel on Thursday also carried out a series of airstrikes against Hamas targets across Gaza, killing at least six gunmen. Additional airstrikes early today killed four people, according to doctors in Gaza.

Fatah, the movement formerly led by Yasser Arafat, has recognized Israel, in contrast with Hamas, whose charter calls for the creation of a future Islamic state across territory that now includes the Jewish state. The two Palestinian parties – one secular, one Islamic – have been fighting for control of various security services and, by extension, political power and patronage since Hamas won democratic elections in January 2006.

Hamas’ militant brand of Islam has given it dominant political standing in impoverished Gaza.

The Bush administration recently approved $40 million to train the Palestinian Presidential Guard, a force of about 4,000 troops under Abbas’ direct control. But both Israel and the United States, each deeply unpopular among Arabs in the region, have been trying to avoid the perception of taking sides in the conflict in Gaza.