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Palestinians on brink of civil war - senior Russian MP

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A prominent Russian lawmaker said Tuesday that continued conflict between the two main Palestinian political groups and ongoing terrorist activity risked plunging the territories into civil war.

MOSCOW, June 13 (RIA Novosti) - A prominent Russian lawmaker said Tuesday that continued conflict between the two main Palestinian political groups and ongoing terrorist activity risked plunging the territories into civil war.

"The main Palestinian political forces, Hamas and Fatah, are implacably opposed to each other," said Mikhail Margelov, chairman of the upper house of parliament's committee for international affairs. "The inability of the Palestinian authorities to eliminate terrorist groups [in the country] has created the conditions for a civil war."

Mragelov said ruling party Hamas was ready to fight both against Israel and Fatah militants, as an initiative by President Mahmoud Abbas to return the Jewish state to its 1968 borders suited neither Hamas nor Israel.

"Israel is against returning to the 1968 borders, while Hamas opposes Israel's right to exist under any circumstances," Margelov said.

He added that, since Hamas did not acknowledge Israel as a country and therefore any agreements concluded with it, the Road Map peace process was in reverse and the peace settlement "turned into a newspaper cliche that is far from the real situation in the region."

"The victory of Hamas at the Palestinian parliamentary elections [in January] created deadlock in the country and a way out can be found only by resumption of Palestinian-Israeli negotiations," he said.

Last Friday, Margelov criticized Israel for an air strike in the Gaza Strip that killed four Palestinians including a senior security official.

Jamal Abu Samhadana had been the leader of the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC), which is accused of numerous attacks on Israel, and was recently appointed by Hamas to the Palestinian Interior Ministry.

Margelov said that the elimination of the head of the 'Hamas Police' did not mean the elimination of radicalism in the Palestinian territories.

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