From JPost, Jul. 10, 2006 by KHALED ABU TOAMEH [a report of another "great Palestinian cultural achievment"]...
A group belonging to Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah party announced on Monday that it had recruited 100 Palestinian women to launch suicide attacks against Israel.
... the Aksa Martyrs Brigades, the armed wing of Fatah....recently established a secret military unit for female suicide bombers from the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Jerusalem. ...The new unit is now preparing to launch attacks against Israel ....
Since September 2000, Palestinian women have carried out seven suicide bombings inside Israel, in which 37 people were killed and more than 250 were wounded. The most serious attack was launched in October 2003 by Hanadi Jaradat, an Islamic Jihad woman from Jenin, who detonated herself at the Maxim Restaurant in Haifa. The bomb left 21 civilians dead and 48 wounded.
... the group was [also] planning to target Hamas members who were responsible for attacks on Fatah activists....
...Tensions between Hamas and Fatah intensified over the past 24 hours following Abbas's decision to appoint Tunis-based PLO official Farouk Kaddoumi as PA foreign minister. Kaddoumi, one of the veteran PLO leaders who is strongly opposed to the Oslo Accords, refused to enter the West Bank and Gaza Strip in 1994 in protest of the agreement between the PLO and Israel.
Hamas officials condemned Abbas's decision as "illegal" and called for its rescission. Abbas's move is seen as part of his efforts to undermine the powers of the Hamas cabinet, which already has a foreign minister, Mahmoud Zahar. Abbas has already confiscated most of the powers of the Hamas cabinet, including control over the security, finances and the media.
"Why do we need two foreign ministers for Palestine?" asked Muhammad Awad, secretary-general of the Hamas cabinet. "Kaddoumi has always been involved in power struggles with Palestinian foreign ministers. Abbas's decision will only complicate matters."
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