Two thousand weapons and two million bullets have been sent through Israel into Gaza, the most tangible evidence yet of efforts by Jerusalem, London and Washington to reinforce President Abbas against his Islamist rivals Hamas.

The delivery, with Israel’s co-operation, comes ten days after Tony Blair backed publicly the “moderate” Fatah leader in his power struggle with Hamas. Britain promised £1 million to bolster Mr Abbas’s Presidential Guard.

But the US-led policy to undermine Hamas, which refuses to recognise Israel, has prompted concern among international mediators that supplying guns and fighters amounts to backing one side in a civil war.

Israeli security officials confirmed that Wednesday’s shipment consisted of 2,000 automatic rifles, 20,000 ammunition clips and 2 million bullets, sent from Egypt into Israel. They then went through the Israeli-controlled Karni crossing into Gaza in four trucks accompanied by a military escort.

Israeli military officials have confirmed to The Times that Mr Abbas’s Presidential Guard, loyal to Fatah, had quietly taken control of the Palestinian side of Karni Crossing, the coastal strip’s only significant goods crossing. Mr Abbas’s Guard replaced other Palestinian Authority forces previously responsible for policing it. Although Israel withdrew its soldiers and Jewish settlers from inside Gaza last year its military still controls all land, sea and air access to Gaza.

Israeli newspapers reported that the details of the shipment were thrashed out by Mr Abbas and Ehud Olmert, the Israeli Prime Minister, when they met in Jerusalem on Saturday.

Mr Olmert’s officials refused to comment and Nabil Abu Rudeineh, Mr Abbas’s spokesman, denied the delivery, saying: “This is not true.”

But Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, the Israeli Minister of National Infrastructures, told Israel Radio: “The weapons are meant to give Abu Mazen [Mr Abbas] the ability to deal with those organisations that are trying to ruin any good thing. So if this helps strengthen Abu Mazen, I am in favour.”

The decision was immediately condemned by right-wing Israelis. Yuval Steinitz, a Likud MP, said: “This is a terrible mistake. The rifles given to the Palestinian police are directed more against us than against terror.”

The move follows weeks of efforts by US diplomats at meetings of the Quartet — the group of mediators made up of the European Union, the United Nations, the US and Russia — to win support for arming Fatah to neutralise Hamas.

Hamas has smuggled vast quantities of weapons through tunnels into Egypt to reinforce its own fighters. Khaled Abu Hillal, an Interior Ministry spokesman, scorned the notion of Mr Abbas’s forces being reinforced by recruits or arms.

“We are not worried. Look at the history of those who came back with Arafat in 1994. How many were arrested? The weapons they brought and the bullets, where are they now? They were used against the Israelis. Let them remember the lessons of history.”

• Corporal Gilad Schalit, seized by Islamic militants on June 25, will soon be freed in a prisoner swap, Ismail Haniya, the Palestinian Prime Minister, said yesterday

  Source: Agencies

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