RAMALLAH, West Bank, Jan 17 (AFP) - New Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas ordered an end to anti-Israeli attacks Monday, issuing instructions for large numbers of security forces to deploy along the Gaza border with Israel.
Under mounting Israeli pressure to take firm action against armed factions, Abbas also ordered an official investigation into a deadly attack on the border last week which led Israel to sever ties with the Palestinian Authority.
"Abu Mazen (Abbas) has given us orders to prevent any violent acts against Israel," said one senior official who attended a meeting of the national security council in Ramallah.
Another security source said that Abbas had also ordered security personnel to be deployed around the border crossings between Gaza and Israel, a specific demand of the Israeli administration.
"Abu Mazen gave orders that the security forces in Gaza be deployed intensively, especially near the crossings," he told AFP.
"Their main task will be to prevent anybody trying to carry out attacks."
The order came after an attack at the Karni crossing between Israel and Gaza killed six Israelis and led Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to order an indefinite freeze on contacts with the Palestinians.
Accusing Abbas of "not lifting a finger" to prevent attacks, Sharon told Sunday's cabinet meeting that he had given Israeli military commanders carte blanche to crush the militants.
Army radio also reported Monday that plans were being drawn up for a large-scale land operation in the territory if Abbas did not take action.
Sharon repeated the criticism in a meeting Monday with visiting Japanese Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura which was held before news emerged of Abbas's latest instructions.
"We do not see any intention by the Palestinians to fight terrorism and halt terrorist actions against Israel," his office quoted him as telling Machimura.
"They could deploy Palestinian police personnel in the areas that they are firing rockets from and they could investigate the latest attack at the Karni crossing and put its perpetrators on trial."
Abbas had already condemned the Karni crossing attack but moved further on Monday when he told his interior minister Hakam Balawi to carry out a special investigation into the attack, which was claimed by three groups, including an armed offshoot of his own Fatah organisation, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades.
At Monday's meeting it also emerged that Abbas wanted to integrate some Brigades members into the official security forces, a move which is unlikely to please Israel.
However, he appeared to be on a collision course with another of the armed factions behind Thursday's attack, after the Islamist movement Hamas condemned a call by the Palestine Liberation Organisation for an end to attacks which it said only served to give Israel an excuse to stall the peace process.
Abbas is due in Gaza on Wednesday for showdown talks with the militants whom he is trying to persuade to sign up to a ceasefire.
"This kind of statement only helps the Zionist enemy and gives it an excuse to continue the occupation and legalises its aggressions," Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri told AFP.
The smaller Islamic Jihad movement also criticised the PLO, saying that the matter should be discussed in private when Abbas comes to Gaza while the leftist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine insisted on what it called its "right to continue on the path of resistance by any means".
In events on the ground, two members of Islamic Jihad were shot dead by Israeli forces near the Kissufim border crossing which serves residents of Jewish settlements living in southern Gaza.
And in the southern Israeli town of Sderot, a frequent target of rocket attacks from northern Gaza, residents staged a one-day general strike as they demanded greater protection from their government.
Three Sderot residents were among those killed in the Karni attack.
01/17/2005 16:40 GMT - AFP