‘Condoleezza! This is Hamas. You must deal with us now’

A MASKED Hamas fighter sat down at Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s desk yesterday and declared an end to the Western-backed authority in the Gaza Strip — in an imaginary telephone call to the United States.

“Hello Condoleezza Rice. You have to deal with me now, there is no Abu Mazen (Abbas) anymore,” the fighter from the Islamist movement’s armed wing Izz el-Deen al-Qassam joked as he spoke into the telephone on Abbas’s desk.

Following days of factional violence in which well over 100 Palestinians have been killed, Gaza is, in effect, a new, schismatic statelet under Hamas control.