Abbas, Hamas mount rival shows of force.

GAZA (Reuters) - President Mahmoud Abbas ordered the deployment of thousands of Palestinian police in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday after the new Hamas government, in a challenge to his authority, posted its own armed contingent on the streets.

A senior Palestinian security official said the deployment, to be fully implemented by Thursday, would be the largest since police fanned out ahead of last year’s Israeli pullout from the impoverished coastal territory after 38 years of occupation.

Both Abbas and the Hamas interior minister said they sought to stem bloodshed by rival Gaza gunmen. But with the security forces’ loyalties often divided between Hamas and Abbas’s long-dominant Fatah faction, further violence remained possible. [Ya think? —ed.] …

Hours earlier, Interior Minister Saeed Seyam declared a Hamas-led, 3,000-member police force operational. About 30 of its men, armed and wearing military fatigues with Islamist insignia, patrolled central Gaza and the strip’s main highway.

Seyam told reporters the new contingent would tackle the “chaos and anarchy and increasing assaults on our people,” an apparent reference to violence that included the killing of two Hamas militants by Gaza gunmen in the past two days.

UPDATE at 5/17/06 1:47:30 pm:

AP helpfully informs us that the picture below does not show the Hamas “security force.”

It’s easy to make that mistake.

Palestinian militants from Hamas, that are not part of a new security force of the Hamas-led Palestinian government, display their weapons as they drive in the streets of Gaza City,Wednesday, May 17, 2006. (AP Photo/Hatem Moussa)

UPDATE at 5/17/06 2:57:02 pm:

Here’s a certified member of the genuine Hamas security forces, patrolling the streets of Gaza to stop lawlessness. See the difference?

A Palestinian militant from the Hamas movement patrols the street of Gaza city May 17, 2006. REUTERS/Mohammed Salem