PA Chairman and Fatah chief Abbas declared Tuesday a day of mourning in the PA-controlled areas of Judea, Samaria and Gaza after violent clashes between Fatah and Hamas on Monday claimed at least six lives and left hundreds injured.

Meanwhile, the Hamas leadership said that they may be willing to share control in Gaza with Fatah; however, dozens of Fatah members have been rounded up by the Hamas militia.

In a recent

...people chanting that their Hamas rulers were on the payroll of Iran.

poll, PA Arabs said they still see PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas as the most trustworthy of their current and potential leaders.

According to reports from Gaza City, where the violence took place, Hamas men opened fire on a crowd of Fatah supporters during a rally in memory of the late PLO terrorist leader Yasser Arafat. The memorial gathering had also reportedly morphed into a protest against the rule of Hamas in Gaza, with people chanting that their Hamas rulers were on the payroll of Iran. Hamas sources charged the protesters with attacking the militiamen assigned to guard the event.



Since Monday, Hamas has arrested scores of Fatah members in Gaza, claiming that the detainees were responsible for the violence at the memorial rally. Fatah claims that about 400 of its members have been rounded up by the Hamas militia, while official Hamas spokesmen said that less than 100 were arrested.

Speaking on a Hamas-controlled television station in the wake of the Gaza shootings on Monday, the PA's Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh said that he may be prepared to turn over security in Gaza to the rival Fatah faction. His comments followed pleas by Abbas for Hamas to relinquish its authority in Gaza. Hamas won elections in the PA in January, 2006 and took complete control over Gaza in a violent coup in June of this year.

Referring to Abbas, Haniyeh said, "We have been seriously considering all Palestinian, Arab and even European initiatives to resume national dialogue, yet the Ramallah-based leadership has always refused all these initiatives."

In its lead editorial on Tuesday entitled "Black Mark on Hamas," Saudi Arabia's English-language Arab News newspaper concluded that Hamas has lost public support to the rival Fatah organization. "A showdown in Gaza is [in] the cards. Indeed it is a certainty. Even if Haniyeh were to go quietly, the Hamas gunmen will not," the daily's editors predicted.

A poll carried out by the Jerusalem Media and Communications Center in August, 2007, and published this month, seems to back up the Arab News editorial analysis that most PA Arabs would lend their support to Fatah's Abbas over his Hamas rival. According to the poll, the man seen by PA Arabs as the third most trustworthy potential PA leader is also a Fatah terrorist, the jailed Marwan Barghouti.

29.2 percent of PA Arabs said they do not trust anyone among potential PA leaders.

Barghouti, who is serving five life terms in an Israeli prison for terrorist crimes, is trusted by 9.6 percent of PA residents. Ahead of Barghouti is Hamas leader Haniyeh, with 16.2 percent, and PA Chairman Abbas was deemed the most trustworthy leader, winning 18.3 percent of the respondents' votes. An additional 29.2 percent of PA Arabs said they do not trust anyone among potential PA leaders.

Similarly, the faction deemed most trustworthy by PA Arabs was Fatah, with 34.4 percent of respondent support, while Hamas came in second with 21.6 percent. Again, slightly over 29 percent of respondents said that they trust none of the factions operating in the PA today.

The poll also revealed that if elections were held today, Abbas would win 20.6 percent of the vote, while Haniyeh would garner 18.8 percent and Barghouti, 16.6 percent.