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Fatah nominates Abbas as presidential candidate

Other News Materials 7 June 2008 20:17 (UTC +04:00)

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah party nominated him as its candidate for upcoming presidential elections, a senior Fatah official said on Saturday.

"Fatah is ready to run in the presidential elections and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is the movement's candidate," said Ahmed Qurei, the chief Palestinian peace negotiator.

Abbas was elected president in January 2005 after the death of Yasser Arafat, but the vote was not contested by Hamas, the biggest Islamic faction in the Palestinian territories.

Hamas said it will not support Abbas if he runs for reelection when his term ends on January 25, 2009.

The president said earlier this week that he was in favour of early parliamentary and presidential elections, but did not name a date.

In a gesture of reconciliation, Abbas said he is ready for dialogue to end the feud that saw him fire the unity government with Hamas a year ago after the Islamic group seized control of the Gaza Strip.

Palestinian security forces loyal to Abbas arrested four Hamas members in the West Bank towns of Bethlehem, Tulkarm and Qalqilya, Hamas said in a press statement.

Calm returned to the border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip on Saturday after Egypt deployed large numbers of security forces as a precaution after comments by Hamas leaders that were seen to imply violence.

Some Hamas leaders had hinted at "untraditional solutions" to lift the Israeli blockade from the enclave, while Palestinians staged a demonstration at Rafah, demanding that the Rafah border crossing be opened.

A total of 1,000 police officers and 500 security forces were deployed across the border on Friday, while the main routes to Rafah city were placed under intense security control, security sources were quoted as saying in the daily al-Mas al-Youm newspaper on Saturday.

For 12 days in January, at least 350,000 Palestinians flooded Egypt's border towns to stock up on supplies made scarce by an Israeli blockade of the territory that was imposed in response to rocket attacks from Gaza on Israeli border towns.

A Palestinian farmer was wounded Saturday by Israeli fire in Khan Younis city in the southern Gaza Strip, hospital officials said.

Mohammed Qudeh, 46, was slightly injured when Israeli forces, positioned on the border, opened fire while farmers were working in their fields, they said.

Meanwhile, Palestinian militants said they fired missiles and mortars at the southern Israeli port city of Ashkelon and an Israeli army base near the Nahal Oz crossing east of Gaza city, dpa reported.

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