Abbas yesterday ordered all non-governmental groups, including those allied with Hamas, to get new operating licences, and they now have a week to comply. It was one of his most far-reaching moves against Hamas yet, since the militants took control of Gaza more than a week ago.

However, heads of NGOs warned that Abbas’s decree may be difficult to enforce since Hamas’s social network provides vital services in an increasingly impoverished society, often stepping in where the cash-strapped government fails to deliver.

In Gaza, meanwhile, the top Hamas leader, deposed Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, told Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman in a telephone conversation that he wanted dialogue with Fatah, Haniyeh’s office said.

“Haniyeh affirmed that dialogue is the only way to solve differences,” the statement from his office said. It was not the first time Haniyeh had called for talks with Fatah since the Hamas takeover of Gaza.

Fatah rejected the offer.

“Dialogue is a need for Palestinians but not now,” said Mohammed Hourani, a confidant to Abbas. “First Hamas has to apologise to the Palestinian people for the crimes committed in Gaza.”

Hamas has not been clear on its policies since it seized Gaza. Today, hardline Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar was quoted as saying his group might carry out bombings and other attacks in the West Bank in response to an arrest sweep there. Dozens of Hamas activists have been arrested by the Palestinian security forces in the West Bank since the Gaza takeover.

Other Hamas activists have hinted at a bombing campaign to try to destabilise the West Bank, a stronghold of Abbas’s Fatah movement. Zahar’s comment, to the German news magazine Der Spiegel, marked the first public confirmation of such a plan.

Haniyeh was scheduled to make a speech tomorrow outlining Hamas’s positions, his office said.

Before dawn today, Israeli troops arrested the founder of the Hamas military wing in the West Bank, Saleh Aruri, prompting allegations by Hamas that the Israeli and Palestinian security forces are coordinating their moves in the crackdown.

Aruri had been released in March after serving 15 Palestinian officials, meanwhile, were stepping up their campaign to dry up Hamas funding. The interior minister, Abdel Razek Yehiyeh, was assigned to review all NGOs and to deny licences to those considered in violation of the law. A senior Palestinian official confirmed Hamas-allied groups are the target of the review.

Israeli counterterrorism expert Boaz Ganor said he believes about a dozen charities and NGOs are used by Hamas to funnel money. “I see this as one brick in the wall of countering Hamas,” he said. “It’s a necessary step by Abu Mazen (Abbas), who is trying to strangle Hamas right now.”

However, Amjad al-Shawwa, coordinator of the Palestinian NGO Network, said it will be difficult to shut down badly needed charities.

In the West Bank city of Ramallah, 60-year-old Aishe Moussa today picked up her monthly $US50 ($59) from a local Islamic welfare office. She said with one son dead and three in an Israeli prison, she couldn’t feed her grandchildren without the assistance. “If they close this place, it means we will face hunger and humiliation,” she said.

Nidal Shabana, head of one of the biggest welfare associations in Gaza, al-Mujamma al-Islami, noted his group provides for 5000 orphans and runs two clinics, 16 kindergartens and two schools. “We are shocked by the decree of the president,” he said. “We are associations that provide humanitarian assistance to all people.”

Shabana’s association had been set up by Hamas’s founder, the late Sheik Ahmed Yassin.

In other developments, Abbas left for Jordan for talks with King Abdullah, ahead of Monday’s Mideast peace summit in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheik. The summit will be attended by Abbas, Abdullah, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak.

Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said the Palestinians expect an Israeli promise to meet US-set benchmarks for lifting travel and trade restrictions in the West Bank, he said.

“I used to come each year to offer prayers at Mata’s shrine. I hardly remember a time I might not have visited the shrine on the annual fair till my migration.

“This year I was prompted by my old age and devotion for the Mata to offer prayers here as I am old and weak now. Maybe I am not around next year to undertake the pilgrimage,” Lal recalled as some Muslims in Tullamulla town, where the holiest Hindu shrine of the Valley is located, offered a bowl of milk to him in keeping with the historical tradition.

Muslims have always lined up outside the shrine with earthen bowls of milk for their Hindu brothers on the annual festival at Khir Bhawani shrine.

“We have been making this small gesture of goodwill for our Pandit brothers annually. There is nothing unusual about this. It is part of our culture,” said Noor Mohammad Bhat, 54, a resident of Tullamulla town.

Lal is deeply touched by the kindness and love of the local Muslims.

“I used to buy herbs from the Muslim children who would line up at Beehama crossing when I used to come here in my youth and middle age. These herbs used to be the choicest offerings for the deity at the shrine.

Christopher Hill — the chief U.S. negotiator at international talks on North Korea’s nuclear programs — said they were looking at a three-week timeframe for shutting down the Yongbyon reactor, when asked by reporters on his arrival at Tokyo’s Haneda Airport.

Hill, an assistant secretary of state, arrived in Tokyo Saturday to brief his Japanese counterpart on the outcome of his two-day surprise trip to the North Korean capital.

The trip — the first by a high-ranking U.S. official since October 2002 — came amid growing optimism that North Korea may finally be ready to take concrete steps toward fulfilling a promise to dismantle its nuclear programs.

Last week, the secretive state invited inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency to begin discussions on the procedures for shutting down its Yongbyon reactor. The country expelled the U.N. nuclear inspectors in late 2002.

The IAEA announced Friday that a delegation led by Olli Heinonen, a deputy director general of the IAEA, would travel to Pyongyang on Tuesday to prepare for the first inspection.

Hill said he was happy the team was set to go, but cautioned that shutting the reactor was just a first step.

“Shutting down the reactor won’t solve all our problems, but in order to solve our problems we need to make this beginning,” he said. “We really think this is the time to pick up the pace.”

North Korean officials told Hill during his visit that Pyongyang was prepared to shut down the Yongbyon facility as called for in the disarmament agreement reached in February, under which the North pledged to close the reactor and allow in U.N. inspectors in exchange for energy aid.

Pyongyang was to have done that by mid-April, but missed the deadline over a delay in resolving a separate financial dispute involving North Korean funds frozen at a Macau bank.

The bank was blacklisted by the U.S. for allegedly aiding North Korea in money laundering and counterfeiting, leading to the freezing of some $25 million (€18.6 million) of North Korean money.

It was freed earlier this year, but it was only last week that it began to be transferred to a North Korean account at a Russian bank.

Hill said earlier this week that North Korea had received the money, but told reporters on Friday the funds were “getting” to the accounts in Russia.

Later Friday, Russia’s deputy foreign minister said the funds will be fully transferred sometime next week.

North Korea had made the money’s release a main condition for its disarmament, and used the financial dispute as a reason to stay away from six-party nuclear talks — involving the two Koreas, China, Japan, Russia and the U.S. — for more than a year, during which it conducted its first nuclear test explosion, in October.

North Korea is to ultimately get aid worth 1 million tons of heavy fuel oil and other political concessions when it disables the reactor.