Ramallah, 16-12-06: The Palestinian National Initiative strongly denounced further internal violence in Gaza and the West Bank over the weekend, in which one Palestinian was killed and more than 30 injured. It urged all factions to return to the language of dialogue, and not that of bullets.
The chaos erupted on Thursday night when Israel prevented Prime Minister Haniyeh from crossing the Rafah border. Hamas supporters stormed the border, and Mr. Haniyeh was finally allowed to cross later that evening. An apparent attempt on his life was made when he reached the Palestinian side of the border however, killing his bodyguard and injuring his son. This sparked protests by Hamas supporters in the West Bank city of Ramallah the following day, where at least 32 people were injured when Fatah-affiliated security forces fired at, and beat protestors with sticks.
Dr. Mustafa Barghouthi MP condemned both the attempt on Mr. Haniyeh’s life and the violent put-down of protests against the attack in Ramallah yesterday. He added that the violence was a direct result of the failure to form a national unity government, and that it only served to further undermine the Palestinian cause.
Dr. Barghouthi called on the two main factions to return to the negotiating table and to seek a political solution to the current crisis. He underlined that the most effective compromise lay in the formation of a national unity government, not in yet a further round of elections.
He urged President Abbas and Prime Minister Haniyeh to hold immediate talks on the formation of a national unity government, to bring an immediate end to all forms of internal violence, and to bring to justice those responsible for the most recent acts violence, notably the murder of three young children in Gaza City on 11 December.