Palestinians to cancel polls if Israel bars voters

Palestinian children throw stones at an Israeli bulldozer near a portrait of slain Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin during an incursion into the West Bank city of Nablus yesterday. Israel voiced fears of a potential explosion of Palestinian violence ahead of next month's parliamentary elections but ruled out allowing any voting to take place in occupied east Jerusalem.. PHOTO: AFP

"If the Israelis insist on not allowing us to conduct the elections in Jerusalem, then there will be no elections at all," Information Minister Nabil Shaath said.

Israeli officials said Wednesday that Israel would not allow Jerusalem Palestinians to vote because it objects to the participation of Hamas militants in the race, and does not want to help bring its candidates to power.

Israel voiced fears of a potential explosion of Palestinian violence ahead of next month's parliamentary election and said yesterday it would not allowing any voting in occupied east Jerusalem.

Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz was reported to have told a meeting of his top lieutenants that Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas was losing control and that the radical Islamist movement Hamas was likely to resume its campaign of attacks, particularly from the Gaza Strip.

"The Palestinian Authority is not functioning in the Gaza Strip, there is no guiding hand," Mofaz was quoted as saying by the Yediot Aharonot daily.

"The Palestinian security forces are not obeying the instructions of the PA chairman (Abbas). We have to be prepared for Hamas's return to terror activity."

Hamas, which is participating in the elections for the first time on January 25, is currently observing a moratorium on its campaign of attacks against Israel but that is due to expire at the end of the year.

Khaled Meshaal, Hamas's Damascus-based overall leader, said earlier this month that the truce would not be renewed as "our people are surrounded and are preparing for a new round of conflict."

Yuval Diskin, the head of Israel's Shin Beth internal security service, told the meeting with Mofaz that the weakening of Abbas's Fatah movement would diminish the Palestinian security services' ability to prevent attacks.

"As soon as Fatah is very weak, and it is weak, the security services that are controlled by the old guard have no legitimacy or motivation to act to prevent terrorism, and without internal legitimacy there is no chance that this will happen," he was quoted as saying by Yediot.

Fatah has been riven by divisions to such an extent that faction rebels have submitted a rival list of candidates to the official slate which will compete against each other in voting on January 25.

Hamas has been trailing Fatah in the polls but managed to win control of three major West Bank municipalities in local elections last week, in areas which had traditionally been Fatah strongholds.

Earlier the principal of the prestigious American School and his deputy were released Wednesday, hours after becoming the latest in a line of foreigners to be kidnapped in the Gaza Strip.

Dutchman Hendrik Taatgen and his Australian assistant Brian Ambrosio were immediately taken to the Gaza City headquarters of the Palestinian Authority after their release, witnesses and security sources said.