US-Trained Anti-Terror Army Protected Fatah and not Israel
by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
(IsraelNN.com) Last week’s assault by the U.S.-trained Palestinian Authority army on Hamas terrorists was aimed at foiling a deadly attack on PA and not against Israel, according to the Bethlehem-based Ma'an news agency.
The United States has touted the army, which it terms special forces in order not to imply that the PA has a military, as proof that the PA can maintain security and tear down the terrorist infrastructure that has caused the deaths of more than 1,000 Jews and has wounded thousands of others.
Ma'an reported that the troops in the PA, headed by the Fatah faction, battled the rival Hamas terrorist faction in order to prevent a deadly attack on the PA, and not Israel. The clash in Kalkilya, which is located adjacent to the city of Kfar Saba-Ra'anana, killed two Hamas terrorists, one bystander who was harboring the Hamas cell, and three members of the fledgling PA army.
Adnan Ad-Dimeiri, commander of the PA security forces, told journalists in Ramallah Sunday evening that the Hamas terrorists were armed with M-16 semi-automatic weapons, which are commonly used by the Israeli Defense Forces.
He said they had enough ammunition for several hours of fighting. More than 220 pounds (100 kilograms) of explosives were discovered. Ad-Dimeiri also charged that Hamas terrorists were more worrisome to the PA than the Israeli army.
Hamas’s Kalkilya commander, Mohammed Yassin, who is one of the terrorists most wanted by Israeli security forces, was killed in the shootout. A spokesman for Hamas declared that the clash was a "crime” that crosses the “red line.”
The battle has made a proposed Hamas-Fatah unit agreement even more distant and strengthens the existence of two PA entities - Fatah in Judea and Samaria, and Hamas in Gaza.
Egypt, which has been meditating talks between Fatah and Hamas, has set July 7 as a final deadline for the two sides to reconcile their differences.
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