HOLY LAND: HAMAS ANNOUNCES GENERAL AMENSTY FOR FATAH MEMBERS, AFTER THEY EXECUTED MANY IN THE STREETS & IN FRONT OF THEIR FAMILIES

Hamas to Grant Amnesty to Fatah Leaders
By Scott Wilson
Washington Post Foreign Service

JERUSALEM, June 15 -- Victorious Hamas gunmen rounded up senior military leaders of the Fatah movement in the Gaza Strip early Friday, then announced a general amnesty in a sign the Islamic movement is seeking to reconcile with its secular rivals after five days of fierce fighting.

The announcement defused worries that Hamas, which completed its swift military seizure of Gaza hours earlier, would begin dispensing victor's justice in the strip. In announcing the arrest of the commanders of the vanquished Fatah-controlled security services, Hamas officials called them "collaborators," a label indicating they work on behalf of Israel and can often mean a death sentence in the Palestinian territories.

But a few hours later, as Gaza residents emerged from their homes to walk in streets quiet for the first time in days, Hamas officials said the commanders, including the head of the Fatah-controlled Presidential Guard and the Palestinian National Forces, would not be harmed.
As Hamas's self-proclaimed "liberation" of Gaza progressed on Thursday, Fatah leader and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas dissolved the Palestinian government and declared a state of emergency.

In a presidential decree, Abbas fired Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas and suggested that new national elections would occur soon. Abbas's decision ends the three-month-old power-sharing arrangement between his Fatah movement and Hamas, the two main Palestinian political parties.

Haniyeh, in a response delivered early Friday, said Abbas had not considered the "consequences" of his decision and pledged to continue to work with his Fatah "brothers." Other Hamas officials said Abbas's ruling had no legal effect.

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1) Hamas to Grant Amnesty to Fatah Leaders