Hamas organized quite a display of force yesterday in order to intimidate members and gunmen of rival factions it has been battling ever since it retained power in March of 2006.

One of such rival factions is represented by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah, which proved a hard-core enemy of Hamas in matters of opposition.

The ruling party of the Palestinians sent approximately 3,000 soldiers on the streets of Gaza City, in order to resolve what Interior Minister Saeed Seyam labeled as "chaos and anarchy and increasing assaults on our people".

According to presidential Secretary-General, Tayyeb Abdul Rahim, as far as Abbas is concerned, he continues to consider himself the rightful controller of the Palestinian security forces, which is why he sent 300 police officers in the southern part of the Gaza Strip late on Wednesday, in order to impose security and in reply to Hamas's decision to deploy troops on the streets.

The march of the Hamas troops on the streets prompted an immediate meeting of all representative Palestinian parties, which attempted to diffuse the situation by making an appeal to both Hamas and Fatah to retreat the troops from the streets and try to talk things over.
Leaders of both Fatah and Hamas held a five hour meeting and in the end, it appeared the two have reached an agreement, if one believes Hamas representative Ryan Nizar, who declared the agreement of the two "will calm the Palestinian people".