Abbas orders “iron fist” to keep Palestinian truce

GAZA, Friday (Reuters) - Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has ordered security forces to use what he called an iron fist if necessary to ensure militants abide by a ceasefire with Israel, the official WAFA news agency said.

In his toughest pledge yet to enforce the truce, Abbas told police in the Gaza Strip nobody must flout the pledge of calm, which is meant to give peacemaking a chance after 4-1/2 years of armed uprising.

Occasional mortar, rocket and shooting attacks have continued despite the truce Abbas won from armed groups last month, prompting Israeli charges Abbas is not doing enough.

“Whoever violates this general consensus ... must be hit by an iron fist,” Abbas was quoted as saying. “Whoever wants to sabotage (the truce) with rocket fire or shooting must be stopped by us even if that requires using force.”

Welcoming the comments, a senior Israeli official said: “Let’s see that iron fist, let’s see him performing.”

The United States, pressing both Israel and the Palestinians to resume negotiations based on an international “road map” peace plan, also welcomed Abbas’s statement.

“For us, determined Palestinian action against terror and to restore security has been a goal for some time,” said U.S. State Department spokesman Adam Ereli.

“Statements such as these by President Abbas I think support that goal, and we are strongly supportive of his efforts and they are to be encouraged.”

The main Islamic militant faction Hamas said it was committed to ensuring calm continued, though it would still respond if Israel killed Palestinians. A spokesman for the umbrella Popular Resistance Committees, a coalition of militants that says it is not bound by the truce, said: “We regret these statements by the president.

“Force should be used against Israel, which kills Palestinian civilians and attacks policemen and the resistance without discrimination.”

No faction has claimed responsibility for three rocket attacks that struck Israel and a Jewish settlement in the Gaza Strip this week.