One police force and one authority in the Gaza Strip? Nothing more than a pipe-dream. - by Khaled Abu Toameh

...The "reconciliation" agreement has yet to be implemented on the ground, yet the issue of the militias in the Gaza Strip is already emerging as a major obstacle and a severe blow to Abbas. He will now have to decide: either to proceed with the "reconciliation" agreement and accept playing the role of president of a Gaza Strip filled with armed groups and militias -- most of which are no friend of his, or to backtrack and realize that his wish to have one law, one police force and one authority in the Gaza Strip is nothing more than a pipe-dream.

Khaled Abu Toameh..
Gatestone Institute..
27 October '17..

Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas says he does not want to see "militias" in the Gaza Strip if and when the "reconciliation" agreement he reached with Hamas is implemented. "The Palestinian leadership will not accept the model of militias in the Gaza Strip because it isn't a successful one," Abbas told the Chinese news agency Xinhua. "There should be one authority, one law and one weapon, with no militias."

Hamas, for its part, has already rejected Abbas's demand. Hamas has said it has no intention of disarming despite the "reconciliation" agreement recently signed in Cairo. "We can't give up our weapons and because the Palestinian people are still in the phase of national liberation," said Yehya Sinwar, the Hamas leader in the Gaza Strip. "We also can't and won't recognize Israel."

Hamas's refusal to disarm should come as no surprise. Since Hamas violently seized control of the Gaza Strip ten years ago, it has built a huge security apparatus that consists of thousands of militiamen, most of them members of Ezaddin Al-Qassam, the movement's military wing. Hamas has also smuggled large amounts of weapons into the Gaza Strip and dug dozens of tunnels along the borders with Israel and Egypt.

The notion that Hamas would ever dismantle its security apparatus and deliver the Gaza Strip to Mahmoud Abbas's forces is a fantasy.

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