Gaza takeover alarms Israeli media

Israeli media have responded with alarm to the takeover of Gaza by the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, with some commentators warning that this "Islamist revolution" had brought Iran and al-Qaeda to their doorstep.

All broadcast media carried special coverage of the developments, showing footage of explosions, families mourning their dead in the morgues, scenes of looting, and men from the rival Fatah movement surrendering.

Commentators warned that in the short term there was a risk that Hamas would try to seize control of the West Bank, and that there would be an exodus of refugee trying to flee Gaza.

The longer-term implications were much more serious, they said.

"For the first time in the history of the Middle East, a Muslim Brotherhood state has emerged here," said TV correspondent Alon Ben-David. "This affects every country in the region where there is a Muslim Brotherhood: Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia. Therefore, the strategic repercussions cannot be fully understood yet."

Israeli television political correspondent Shmu'el Tal said: "In the south, Israel now faces an extremist and threatening, front-line Iranian outpost."

The television said Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's policy at this point is "not to intervene, to sit and do nothing. He totally rules out any military intervention, despite the emergence of Hamastan on the border fence."

However, it reported that the Israeli military was in a high state of alert on the border with the Gaza strip "for fear that after the takeover of Gaza Hamas might aim its guns at Israel".

A Voice of Israel radio reporter said that the military would send aid to Gaza in the event of a humanitarian crisis.

"At a certain stage the IDF will need to impose its authority on Gaza - if not on the whole of it, then at least on its gates. Or, alternatively, reach a settlement with Hamas," said Nahum Barnea in a commentary in Yediot Aharonot newspaper.

Other commentators in the press engaged in soul-searching, with one suggesting that Israel shared some of the responsibility of the weak Palestinian leadership which had allowed the Gaza take-over.

"The Israeli contribution to this loss of leadership was decisive. Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti sits in prison, Israel preferred (late Palestinian leader Yasir) Arafat's weak and corrupt associates to Fatah's young generation," said Ofer Shelah in a commentary in the Ma'ariv newspaper.

Another commentator regrets the opportunities lost by earlier Israeli leaders.

"Ten, 20, 30 years ago 1,001 plans for peace, separation, ceasefire were offered to us and them and we, the arrogant thugs of the Middle Eastern neighbourhood, rejected them one by one," said Eitan Haber in the large-circulation Yediot Aharonot. "Today we would have accepted them with both hands, embraced them, kissed them, if only those proposals would come again, damn it."

Ya'akov Katz, writing in the English-language Jerusalem Post, outlines Israel's options: "The first, which has been rejected, is to invade Gaza and help Fatah; the second is to shut down all the crossings into the Strip and completely disconnect from Gaza; the third option is to open talks with Hamas."

He said another option was to dispatch to Gaza a multinational force from Arab countries.

BBC Monitoring selects and translates news from radio, television, press, news agencies and the internet from 150 countries in more than 70 languages. It is based in Caversham, UK, and has several bureaux abroad.