Setback for Abbas on Ballot Plan

Palestinian Statehood Document Loses Factional Support

JERUSALEM, June 11 -- The Hamas prisoners' leadership withdrew its support Sunday for a document that Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas plans to put to a referendum next month. The move sharpened partisan rivalry in the territories at a time of rising conflict with Israel.

The 18-point document, signed last month by leaders of Hamas, Abbas's Fatah party and other Palestinian factions in Israeli jails, endorses the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel. When it was presented, the so-called prisoners' document marked a major step toward recognition of the Jewish state by an influential segment of the Hamas leadership. The radical Islamic movement has long refused to acknowledge Israel's existence.

Abbas decided on Saturday to put the document, which also calls for the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes, internal political reforms and other items, to a referendum July 26. His decision prompted an angry response from Hamas leaders, who called the move an illegal attempt to undermine the Hamas-led government that took office at the end of March.

In a statement released Sunday, the imprisoned Hamas leader who signed the document, Abdel Khaleq al-Natsheh, said he no longer supported it. He asked Abbas, Fatah's leader and president of the Palestinian Authority, to cancel the public vote on the document, which was meant to serve as a basis for negotiation between the two leading Palestinian political movements.

Sami Abu Zouhri, a Hamas spokesman, read the statement at a news conference in the Gaza Strip. He was joined by an Islamic Jihad official, Khaled al-Batsh, who retracted his group's support for the document on behalf of Bassam al-Saadi, an imprisoned leader who had also signed it.

"So who does this document now represent?" Abu Zouhri asked afterward. "This has become a solely Fatah document."

In a speech Saturday, Abbas cast the referendum as the only way to end the economic sanctions that have been in place since Hamas won parliamentary elections in January. Most foreign aid has been suspended, and Israel has stopped the monthly transfer of $55 million in tax revenue that it collects on behalf of the Palestinian government.

Most of the authority's more than 150,000 civil servants have not been paid in three months, exacerbating poverty, unemployment and factional tensions between Hamas and Fatah that have led to deadly clashes in recent weeks.

Polls indicate that a large majority of Palestinians support the prisoners' document, which calls for the creation of a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem -- territory Israel occupied in the 1967 Middle East war.

Abbas has long favored this position and has expressed hope that a clear public expression of support in a nonbinding referendum will help revive peace talks with Israel and lead to a resumption of foreign aid, which the Palestinian government relies on for nearly half its $2 billion annual budget. Hamas endorses a Palestinian state on land that now includes the Jewish state.

"We and they are using all tools of pressure that may influence the position of the voters," said Saeb Erekat, a Fatah legislator and the Palestinians' chief negotiator with Israel. "In my opinion, it is legitimate for people to vote no, to vote yes, to use all tools. But what is most important is that once the results are out, everyone must adhere to them. This authority cannot be with two policies."

Meanwhile, Palestinian gunmen in Gaza fired at least 18 rockets into southern Israel on Sunday, critically injuring an Israeli man after one crashed into a college campus near the city of Sderot. Islamic Jihad and Hamas asserted responsibility for the barrage.

The Israeli air force responded by hitting what officials described as a group of Hamas gunmen preparing to fire a rocket near the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiya. Hospital officials in Gaza said two of the men were killed in the airstrike, part of ongoing Israeli efforts to stop the rocket fire.

Hamas's armed wing declared Friday that it would no longer abide by a temporary cease-fire brokered in March 2005. The declaration came after seven civilians were killed on a beach near Beit Lahiya by what witnesses said were Israeli artillery shells. The Israeli military is investigating the incident.