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Saeed Seyam

Saeed Seyam

Hamas

Israel-Palestine-Jordan

20060324

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Israel-Palestine-Jordan

Hamas held secret leadership election: official

2008-09-17

Thousands of Hamas members voted in a secret internal ballot in the Gaza Strip that re-elected the Islamist group's most prominent leaders to its highest bodies and signaled no change in policy. "The election showed the wonderful face of democracy within Hamas. It was carried out smoothly," a Hamas official said about last month's vote, citing security considerations for the decision to keep it secret. Officials in the group said some veteran leaders had lost seats on the Shura Council to younger candidates but senior figures Ismail Haniyeh, Mahmoud al-Zahar and Saeed Seyam were re-elected to the policy-setting body and to the politburo. The three are Hamas's top leaders in the Gaza Strip, territory the movement seized in fighting against Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah forces in June 2007. Several members of Hamas's armed wing, the Izz el-Deen al-Qassam Brigades, were elected to the politburo, which executes policy and strategy decided by the Shura Council. In Hamas, candidates do not actively seek nomination but their names are put forward by activists or mosques in their hometowns. Hamas last held an internal ballot in 2006 before it won a Palestinian parliamentary election that year in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. The Hamas official said the group's priorities remained an end to divisions with Fatah and a continuation of "resistance" against Israel, which tightened a blockade of the Gaza Strip after the 2007 takeover of the territory. Despite its declared policy of continuing to fight Israel, Hamas agreed to a ceasefire along the Gaza border in June and has said it would accept a Palestinian state in lands captured by Israeli forces in a war in return for a long-term truce.

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Israel-Palestine-Jordan

Self-harm as strategy

2008-05-09

Ever since the Trojans welcomed the Wooden Horse, full of armed Greeks, into their city, rulers and regimes have unintentionally defeated themselves. But as the last month has made obvious, with the rule of Hamas in Gaza we have something else entirely: not folly, but a strategy designed to inflict self-harm. The clearest, but by no means the only example of this is the fuel crisis that has brought transportation in Gaza to a virtual standstill. Even as it harshly condemned the Israeli "siege" of the Gaza Strip, Hamas acted to exacerbate the problem by repeatedly confiscating fuel trucks and carrying out attacks on border crossings. On April 9, it launched an assault on the fuel terminal at Nahal Oz, which provides gas and fuel to the residents of the Strip. Last week, Hamas militiamen attacked trucks heading toward the Nahal Oz crossing that carried fuel intended for the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) and hospitals in the Gaza Strip. And the IDF was forced on Sunday to halt deliveries through the Karni crossing after vehicles came under Palestinian mortar fire while attempting to deliver food and fuel to Gazans. Hamas, of course, does not have a monopoly on such self-harm; in one form or another, the tactic is shared by all terrorist movements, including the intifadas that brought such ruin to the Palestinian population. How then are we to understand such self-defeating behavior? There are two ways, as political scientist James Q. Wilson has said, of thinking about terrorism. One is to see terrorism as an extreme expression of underlying injustices, and to assume that if the root problem is solved, the symptom will disappear. The second, and more realistic, is to understand that whatever the underlying injustice, there are terrorists who by their very nature oppose solutions that would remedy that injustice. Any reform or amelioration, short of destroying the state, threatens their raison d'etre. THIS LESSON must guide Israel's response to Hamas's offer of a truce. Khaled Mashaal, the group's Damascus-based leader, said Monday that his movement would offer Israel a 10-year hudna if it withdrew from all areas it captured in 1967. Gaza-based Hamas representatives Mahmoud Zahar and Saeed Seyam have been in Cairo as part of Egyptian mediation efforts toward a cease-fire. The problem with such offers is not merely that Hamas would use a truce to rearm and regroup. Mashaal himself, after all, has proclaimed as much. "It is a tactic in conducting the struggle; it is normal for any resistance that operates in its people's interest... to sometimes escalate, other times retreat a bit," he said in a recent interview with Al-Jazeera television. Nor is it merely that the offer is accompanied by further threats of violence. Hamas has warned of an "unprecedented escalation" against Israel if it does not agree soon to the cease-fire offer, the London-based Asharq Al-Awsat reported Sunday. It is also an offer that exploits both Israel's justified fear of further terrorist attacks and our sense of concern vis-à-vis Gaza's growing humanitarian crisis. The real problem, however, is that here too, Hamas's aim is not to reach a lasting resolution to the conflict, but precisely to exacerbate it - to weaken the Israeli adversary and foster the illusion that the next set of concessions will be the last. "To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill," Sun Tzu said in the 4th century BCE. IN INTERNATIONAL relations, as in other dimensions of life, the good intentions of others alone cannot aid those who refuse to help themselves. As the US is now learning in Iraq, for instance, democracy cannot be imposed on Arab societies from without. Much as Israel may wish for progressive reforms in Palestinian Arab society and for the concomitant relief of Palestinian suffering, such salvation need come from within. Civilized nations are in an unenviable position when confronting regimes dedicated to the tragic ethos of self-harm. In the case of Hamas, the best approach remains continued adherence to the Quartet's policy of no contact with Hamas until it accepts the international community's three conditions for engagement: recognizing Israel's right to exist, renouncing terrorism and accepting previous Israeli-Palestinian agreements.

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International-UN-NGOs

Teaching rocket science

2008-05-06

United Nations officials say they're shocked - shocked! - to learn that the headmaster at one of their top prep schools in Gaza was also the chief rocket-maker for Islamic Jihad. Thankfully, Awad al-Qiq, for the past eight years a science teacher at schools run by the UN's Relief and Works Agency, won't be assembling any more weapons: An Israeli airstrike last week took out his bomb-making operation - plus him. Now the UN agency, which Israel has long accused of complicity with terrorists, must explain how it let a high-ranking terrorist take charge of its Rafah Prep Boys School. He was guilty, of course: Islamic Jihad actually ID'd him as "chief leader of the engineering [i.e., bomb-making] unit." His home was bedecked with Islamic Jihad posters - and an Islamic Jihad flag was draped over his body at his funeral. Indeed, Islamic Jihad gave him the ultimate sendoff tribute: firing a barrage of his rockets into Israel in mourning. So much for UNRWA's self-proclaimed "zero-tolerance policy toward politics and militant activities." Of course, that policy was pretty well shown up as a joke when a UNRWA teacher named Saeed Seyam was named interior minister of the Hamas-led government in Gaza and immediately vowed never to arrest any Palestinian for "resisting the occupation." According to Rep. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.), UNRWA confirmed last December that families of suicide bombers have received money from the agency. The United States, incidentally, pays 30 percent to 40 percent of UNRWA's budget - $505 million last year alone. For years, Congress has tried to ax US funding for UNRWA, with little success. It's time to try again.

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Israel-Palestine-Jordan

Israel kills 14 in Gaza after troops die in clash

2008-04-17

Israeli forces killed 14 Palestinians, most of them civilians, in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip on Wednesday after three Israeli soldiers died in an ambush by Hamas fighters near a border fuel pipeline. Despite the heaviest fighting in more than a month, Israel allowed European-funded fuel into Gaza to keep its only power plant operational. "The fuel has started to go through," said the European Union official, referring to the Nahal Oz terminal, close to the scene of clashes in which the three soldiers died. Fourteen Palestinians, at least nine of them civilians, were killed in separate Israeli attacks including air strikes, Hamas and medical officials said. They said the dead included three youths, a 67-year-old man, and at least four Hamas gunmen. Nahal Oz was shut down by Israel on April 9 after militants killed two Israeli civilians at the facility. Israel's Defence Ministry had said it would reopen the pipeline on Wednesday, but the latest attack had raised doubts fuel would flow again soon. Kanan Abaid, deputy chairman of the Palestinian Energy Authority in the Gaza Strip, said before pumping resumed that the power plant only had enough fuel to operate until Saturday. The EU official said the goal was to provide "as much (fuel) as can be possibly be pumped today" because the army had yet to tell the Europeans whether they would be allowed to make further deliveries to the plant on Thursday and Friday. The plant supplies power mainly to residents of Gaza City and its surrounding areas, home to 800,000 people. Israeli officials accuse Hamas of preventing distribution of petrol and diesel in order to create a crisis to pressure Israel to ease a blockade it tightened after the Islamist group seized control of the territory in June. A strike by Gaza petrol station owners has been preventing distribution of limited Israeli supplies of gasoline and diesel to the general public. In a development likely to stoke further anger in Israel, Hamas said former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, who planned to travel later in the day to Egypt, would meet in Cairo with two of its Gaza-based leaders, Warty Nose Mahmoud al-Zahar and Saeed Seyam. "Mr Carter asked for the meeting. He wanted to hear the Hamas vision regarding the situation, and we are interested in clarifying our position and emphasising the rights of our people," Hamas official Ayman Taha said. Carter's delegation in Israel declined to comment. Zahar, speaking in Gaza before leaving for Egypt, said Carter had been able "to break all the restrictions preventing him from meeting Hamas leaders". Israeli leaders have shunned Carter over his contacts with Hamas, which has rejected Western demands to recognise Israel, renounce violence and accept existing Israeli-Palestinian interim peace deals. Carter, who began a Middle East visit on Sunday, said in Arab East Jerusalem it would be counterproductive to exclude Hamas completely from "conversations or consultations".

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Israel-Palestine-Jordan

Hamas airs "confessions of pro-Abbas plotters"

2008-02-16

GAZA (Rooters) - Hamas screened purported confessions on Saturday that it said proved Palestinian rivals had plotted to kill the Islamists' leader in the Gaza Strip. But aides to Western-backed President Mahmoud Abbas dismissed the allegations as lies produced under torture. No outcry yet from Human Rights Watch about Hamas torturing people? "I was told that if I blew myself up against ... Haniyeh, they would take care of my family," a young man named as Ahmed al-Dbaki and described as a would-be suicide bomber said in a film clip shown at a televised Hamas news conference in Gaza. Among nine others whose edited video statements were screened to journalists by Hamas's security chief, one described as a senior security officer for Abbas's secular Fatah faction spoke fluently for several minutes of how he oversaw a plot to kill Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas leader in Gaza. "I was ordered to form an armed cell to strike the Hamas movement," the man, named as Hassan al-Zant, said. "I was instructed to find a martyr to carry out the task." Other detainees were younger and appeared pale and hesitant. No independent assessment was available of allegations first made last month when Hamas announced a number of arrests. The conflicting accounts and bitterness in the opposing camps underlined the depth of the split among Palestinian leaders since Hamas defeated Abbas's Western-backed forces in Gaza in June, leaving Abbas's rule limited to the West Bank. Saeed Seyam, a former interior minister who now runs security forces in Gaza, accused senior presidential aide Tayeb Abdel-Rahim and Abbas's intelligence chief Tawfiq Tirawi. "This dirty crime was plotted at the highest level of leadership within the Palestinian Authority," Seyam said. "It proved they did not want dialogue and wanted civil war when they planned to kill an official like Ismail Haniyeh." A senior Abbas spokesman, in a statement issued in the West Bank, dismissed Seyam's news briefing as "comedy theatre": "Hamas is known for making up lies and using any method to make themselves look real, including torture," he said. "These lies will persuade no one. Quite the reverse -- these lies will strengthen the belief that Hamas is ... beyond the law." Seyam denied the detainees, who were not presented in person to reporters, were abused. "They were not subject to any torture or psychological pressure," he said. Several of those whose edited segments of testimony were shown said the plan was to place suicide bombers in a mosque where Haniyeh, once Abbas's prime minister, often prayed or at an event last month when he welcomed pilgrims home from Mecca.

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Israel-Palestine-Jordan

Hamas says it has foiled Fatah plot to kill leader

2008-01-20

A senior Hamas official in the Gaza Strip on Saturday accused rival Fatah of plotting to assassinate Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh as he prayed and said the would-be suicide bomber had been arrested and had confessed. Tension between Islamist Hamas and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's secular Fatah faction has increased since Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip in a brief but bloody civil war in June. Fatah still holds sway in the occupied West Bank. "There was a plan by a suicide bomber wearing an explosives belt to assassinate Haniyeh as he prayed in the mosque. He was arrested and confessed," Saeed Seyam, who oversees Hamas government security forces in Gaza and is a former interior minister in the Hamas government, told reporters. A Fatah spokesman dismissed Sayam's allegations. "We deny any involvement or considering any bomb plot in mosques against any Palestinian figure, whether it be Haniyeh or anybody else," Fahmi al-Zareer said. "Fatah will never use this method of killing and assassination," he added. He accused Hamas of previously killing opponents in mosques in Gaza. Seyam said the security officials who made the arrest had seized a video tape which showed the would-be attacker together with those training him. He named a number of suspects but did not single out the identity of the would-be bomber. Seyam said another bombing had been planned to blow up Hamas television station headquarters in Gaza. Seyam said Tayeb Abdel-Rahim, a senior Abbas aide, had been "involved and aware" of the plot against Haniyeh and had assured the would-be bomber his family would be looked after and moved to safety in the West Bank city of Ramallah. Hamas has seen Abdel-Rahim as an arch-enemy since he oversaw a major crackdown on the group in 1996 when acting as a senior adviser to late President Yasser Arafat, after Hamas carried out a wave of suicide bombings inside Israel. Abdel-Rahim was unavailable for comment on Saturday. Zareer said Seyam's allegation "served to revive tensions" between the two groups. Seyam said Ahmed Dogmush, a former senior Fatah security officer in Gaza, had been one of the masterminds of the assassination plot and that several others involved were still at large in the West Bank and in Egypt. "According to the information we have, some of those at large are still determined to carry out a bombing in the mosque where Haniyeh attends prayers," he said. Hamas police said they would reward anybody who gave information leading to their capture. Last week a Hamas security official said the group had arrested a Palestinian with 4 kg (9 lb) of TNT ready to be detonated by mobile phone at a Gaza rally where Haniyeh welcomed home hundreds of Haj pilgrims.

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Israel-Palestine-Jordan

Fatah and Hamas gunmen clash despite unity talks™

2007-03-10

JENIN, West Bank (Reuters) - Fatah gunmen shot at the convoy of a minister from the rival Hamas movement in the occupied West Bank on Saturday, the first factional violence since Palestinian unity talks™ began a month ago. Bored? And here I was afraid of what might happen to the Trucefire™. Officials from both sides said Wasfi Kibha, minister of prisoner affairs, was unharmed in the shooting near Tubas, a town near the West Bank's largest city of Nablus. The incident sparked a gun battle in the area between Hamas and Fatah members in which one person was lightly wounded, Hamas sources said. Somebody drop their gun? Fatah, headed by President Mahmoud Abbas, and officials from the ruling Hamas faction offered different accounts of the incident which occurred despite predictions by Hamas members that a joint government deal with Fatah was near. They did it! No, they did it! No, they did it! Kibha told Reuters that Fatah gunmen had stopped his car at a makeshift checkpoint outside Tubas."Without warning they shot at my car," he said. His convoy turned around and headed in the opposite direction, toward the West Bank town of Jenin. Run away! Run away! A Fatah official said their gunmen had opened fire only after armed members of a Hamas-led police force accompanying the minister's car had shot toward them. A Palestinian photographer was injured by a bullet fragment in the head, the official said. Must've been aiming at his foot. In Gaza City, gunmen stormed the campus of the pro-Fatah Al Quds University, and shot and wounded a student council member from Fatah, a Palestinian security source said. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the Gaza shooting. Hillbillies? Frat boys from Gaza State? Hamas denies it has any police in the West Bank. Fatah has accused Hamas of seeking to build such a force there. Disagreement over the Hamas police force in Gaza is a major obstacle to the sides wrapping up talks over a unity government. Reminds me of the old Saturday Night Live "Ex Police" skit... After Saudi mediation, Hamas and Fatah agreed a month ago to forge a joint coalition cabinet, largely ending weeks of bloody factional fighting centered in the Gaza Strip in which more than 90 people were killed. No money has changed hands yet, I assume. Both sides must be getting cranky. Abbas said on Thursday a unity deal was "99 percent" agreed although he had not yet agreed with Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas who would be interior minister, a post that controls the powerful security services. Saeed Seyam, the current interior minister from Hamas, said the movement has demanded its police force remain intact under any unity deal, pending a reorganization of the other security forces now dominated by Abbas's Fatah. "The executive force will remain until the other security services are restructured," Seyam said in Gaza. Until then, rest up, rearm, reload...

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Israel-Palestine-Jordan

Haniyeh calls on armed men to leave Gaza streets

2007-02-04

A Fatah affiliated National Security Forces officer was killed in the center of Gaza City Saturday evening, apparently at the hands of Hamas gunmen. The incident occured only a few hours after Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas urged gunmen to withdraw from Gaza City's streets, as clashes between Fatah and Hamas militants resumed Saturday across the Gaza Strip in defiance of a truce deal. Also Saturday, Fatah gunmen kidnapped two Hamas militants in the West Bank city of Nablus, one of them the head of the Shari'a faculty at the city's A-Najah University. Earlier Saturday, Interior Minister Saeed Seyam of Hamas said Saturday that senior offficials from rival Fatah and Hamas factions agreed to implement immediately a new cease-fire aimed at stopping the violence. Speaking after talks with Fatah security official Rashid Abu Shbak, Seyam said the two sides agreed to withdraw their gunmen from Gaza streets and rooftops, remove checkpoints, and halt media incitement. Haniyeh said that Gaza City's Islamic University, a Hamas stronghold, sustained $15 million in damage during attacks in recent days by security forces allied with his political rival, Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas. He added that the Hamas-led government would give a grant of $1 million to the university.

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Israel-Palestine-Jordan

Gaza Cleric banged after plea for calm

2007-01-05

Unidentified gunmen shot dead a Muslim cleric after he delivered a sermon in the Gaza Strip on Friday calling for an end to fierce factional fighting between Hamas and Fatah, hospital officials and local residents said. The cleric's shooting in central Gaza came hours after Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas said he and President Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah had agreed to keep rival gunmen off Gaza's streets after clashes in which eight were killed. Tension remained high across the coastal strip as thousands of Palestinians loyal to Fatah took part in funeral marches for a commander killed in a barrage of rocket-propelled grenades fired by Hamas gunmen on Thursday. Brushing aside Haniyeh's plea for calm, Fatah issued a harshly worded statement in Gaza: "Blood for blood and aggression for aggression... and all the sons of the movement should retaliate to each aggression openly." The Muslim cleric, who was in a car when the gunmen opened fire, was affiliated with neither Hamas nor Fatah. No group claimed responsibility for the shooting, which occurred after services at a mosque in the Maghazi refugee camp. Residents said the cleric had sharply criticised internal fighting in his Friday sermon. At one of the funeral marches, members of Fatah's al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades threatened to assassinate Foreign Minister Mahmoud al-Zahar and Interior Minister Saeed Seyam of Hamas. "Zahar and Seyam, you have to leave Gaza. We will tear your bodies to pieces," an al-Aqsa member screamed through a megaphone as gunmen fired into the air. Overnight, Hamas-controlled militants and police forces stormed the house of senior Fatah leader Sufian Abu Zaida in northern Gaza Strip, smashing furniture. Abu Zaida, a former cabinet minister, was unhurt. Haniyeh said after late-night emergency talks with Abbas, their first meeting in two months, that they had agreed to "withdraw all gunmen from the streets and deploy police forces to keep law and order". Similar pacts in the past have quickly been shattered by violence and Gazans said they feared another eruption of bloodshed later in the day when Thursday's dead are buried.

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Israel-Palestine-Jordan

Palestinian group threatens to kill Hamas leaders

2006-10-03

Looks like they're goin to the mattresses... GAZA (Reuters) - Fatah gunmen threatened on Tuesday to kill leaders of the governing Hamas group, escalating a power struggle marked by the worst internal violence in Gaza and the West Bank since the Palestinian Authority was created in 1994. Because this...is the business...we've CHOSEN... Twelve Palestinians have been killed and more than 100 wounded in two days of clashes in the Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank between the Fatah faction of President Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas. Scorecard! Get ya scorecard here! Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an armed wing of Fatah, said it held Hamas's Damascus-based political chief Khaled Meshaal, Interior Minister Saeed Seyam and senior Interior Ministry official Youssef al-Zahar responsible for the deaths."We in al-Aqsa announce, with all might and frankness, the ruling of the people in the homeland and in the diaspora, to execute the head of the sedition, Khaled Meshaal, Saeed Seyam and Youssef al-Zahar, and we will execute this ruling so those filthy people can be made an example," a statement said. Grrrrrr! Woof! Seeeeeethe! Death to...somebody! Abbas has been locked in an increasingly bitter power struggle with Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas over stalled efforts to form a unity government. C'mon, Ismail. Blood's bad for business. Haniyeh, repeating a call for an end to internal violence and a return to talks on a unity government, accused the US of trying to "divide and rule." He urged Arab and Muslim nations "not to be dragged into following the interests and plans" of the U.S. administration. Oh, yeah, Condi's in town. Hopefully, somebody bought her a scorecard. Hamas, which advocates Israel's destruction, defeated Fatah in elections in January. The victory led to a cut-off of Western aid to the Palestinian Authority and deep economic crisis in the Gaza Strip and occupied West Bank. Elections? We got guns! We doan need no steenkin elections!!! Responding to al-Aqsa's threat against his life, Zahar said it was not representative of the group but the work of "coup seekers who want to achieve what the Occupation (Israel) failed to do -- liquidate Islamists serving the homeland." I knew if the Israeli's gave them enough time that they'd end up eating their own... Hamas legislator Mushir al-Masri said Hamas would "not show mercy" if any of its top officials were targeted. We'll show youze guys! A spokesman for al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades in Gaza declined to say whether the statement, sent to Reuters, represented the views of the entire group or certain factions. He described the threat as a "natural response" after Seyam ordered his forces to take to the streets of Gaza on Sunday to confront striking policemen demanding overdue salaries. We always threaten to kill people after...anything. It's just "our way"... Clashes between Hamas and Fatah forces quickly erupted and spread in the most serious Palestinian violence since the Palestinian Authority was set up to oversee limited self-rule in the West Bank and Gaza under interim peace accords with Israel. Tension has been fueled by the government's inability to pay full salaries to its workers, many of them from Fatah, as a result of the Western aid embargo designed to push Hamas to recognize Israel, renounce violence and abide by interim deals. Unpaid hacks with guns leads to no good...film at eleven... Some Fatah leaders have accused Syria, which sponsored an armed rebellion by Palestinian dissidents against then Palestine Liberation Organization chief Yasser Arafat in 1983 in Lebanon, of encouraging Hamas to resist any calls to bend. Yeah. Zippy says you Hamas guy's don't have to take that shit! Curse their mother's mustaches! A top aide to Abbas said on Monday the president was seriously considering the possibility of forming an emergency government, an administration of technocrats or calling early elections to end the crisis with Hamas. Or maybe hitting those secret bank accounts and flying off to Aruba and setting up there. In a separate incident on Tuesday, an Israeli air strike destroyed a metal foundry in the southern Gaza Strip, killing one Palestinian and wounding another, medical staff and residents said. Another tough night in the "metal district"... An Israeli army spokesman said the air strike was aimed at a suspected weapons factory. Israel has frequently targeted buildings it believes are used by militants to make or store rockets. Notify Mutual of Gaza...

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Israel-Palestine-Jordan

Kidnapped Fox journalists convert to Islam on video

2006-08-27

GAZA (Reuters) - Two kidnapped Fox journalists appeared on a new videotape released by their captors on Sunday in the Gaza Strip, in which the reporters said they had converted to Islam, the Fox News Channel said. Palestinian Interior Minister Saeed Seyam said efforts were under way to secure within hours the release of Fox correspondent Steve Centanni, a 60-year-old American, and New Zealand-born cameraman Olaf Wiig, 36. Both journalists appeared to be in good health in the new video. They were seized on August 14. They were shown separately sitting cross-legged, reading a statement which Fox said was an announcement that they had converted to Islam. At times in the video they were wearing long Muslim robes. Wiig called on leaders of the West to stop "hiding behind the 'I don't negotiate with terrorists' myth". He then read some words in Arabic. "The issue of the two kidnapped journalists is on the way to being resolved," Seyam told Reuters. "Efforts are under way with several parties to secure their release within the coming hours." The previously unknown Holy Jihad Brigades claimed responsibility on Wednesday for the kidnapping and had warned the United States to free Muslim prisoners or the captives would face unspecified consequences. The deadline expired on Saturday. The United States has said it would not make "concessions to terrorists". A videotape released on Wednesday showed the two men, dressed in tracksuits, sitting on a blanket in front of a black background. They appeared fairly relaxed and in good health. Both said that they were fine and being treated well. The kidnapping is the longest-lasting abduction of foreigners in the Palestinian coastal strip in more than a year.

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Israel-Palestine-Jordan

Hamas calls Gaza to arms

2006-07-07

The Palestinian government has urged security forces to fight Israeli troops in Gaza after the most violent day since Israel withdrew from the territory last year. Saeed Seyam, the interior minister, declared a state of emergency on Thursday, according to a spokesman after fighting killed 17 Palestinians and one Israeli soldier. Khalid Abu Hilal, a Hamas minister, told a news conference: "Because of the continuation of bloodshed and Israel's crimes, the minister of interior a few hours ago declared a full state of emergency in the homeland. He (Seyam) called on all Palestinian security and military services to participate in the moral, national and religious duty to defend our people ... and to confront this incursion and cowardly Zionist aggression." However, although some security forces are controlled by Hamas, most are loyal to Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, and his Fatah movement. And Abbas is the only person who can authorise a state of emergency.

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