International plan hatched to bring back Fatah

Times Online reported A plan to create a new foothold in Gaza for the Palestinian Authority and to bring in international monitors was being drawn up by diplomats yesterday as a UN ceasefire call was dismissed by both sides.

Hamas has killed most of the Fatah people in Gaza before. What makes them think these will not be killed too, and what Fatah people are stupid enough to test them.

The plan would allow a return of the authority, led by the secular Fatah faction, to the territory 18 months after it was expelled by the Islamist Hamas. Diplomats are considering taking a triangle at the southern end of Gaza, including the Rafah crossing to Egypt and the Kerem Shalom crossing to Israel, to be policed by Turkish and French military monitors to stop arms smuggling into Gaza.

Will they be more effective than the monitors in Lebanon who were supposed to keep Hezbollah from rearming?

The zone would nominally be controlled by the authority, the internationally recognised Government. Such a plan would allow the crossings to reopen for the first time since Hamas seized power in Gaza in June 2007.... It faces formidable obstacles.

Particularly Hamas.

Diplomats said yesterday that the Egyptian efforts were getting bogged down because of disagreements over how to secure the border. Hamas has said it would consider allowing observers at the border crossings with Egypt but opposes an international force. It also claimed yesterday that a delegation of three Hamas leaders had crossed the border into Egypt to join talks. Israel, however, is insisting on a robust international force to destroy smuggling tunnels under the border. Egypt, for its part, does not want international troops on its territory.

Then let its own forces close the tunnels down.