TEL AVIV, Israel, May 14 (UPI) -- In the midst of a new upsurge of Fatah-Hamas assassinations, the Palestinian national unity government Monday lost a minister who was supposed to help keep them all together: Interior Minister Hani al-Qawasmi.

Qawasmi's resignation, barely two months after the government was formed, followed his failure to control the various security forces and implement a plan to restore law and order to the chaotic Gaza Strip.

Qawasmi, an independent who has been close to Hamas, prepared a security plan to which the ministers agreed, but apparently in word only.

As interior minister, Qawasmi was supposed to control the Preventive Security, for example. However, its top man in Gaza, Rashid Abu-Shbak, has been loyal to former minister Mohammad Dahlan of Fatah, considered a bitter opponent of Hamas. Qawasmi's predecessor, Said Siam, formed a powerful Expeditionary Force of several thousand men, but they are considered loyal to Siam.

President Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah controls the main security forces such as the National Security and Presidential Guard. Their top leaders are loyal to Fatah, noted Naji Shurab, a professor of political science, in an interview from Gaza.

Fatah and Hamas had agreed to appoint Qawasmi precisely because he was weak, with no background in security. He did not threaten any of the power brokers, noted Shalom Harari, Israeli intelligence brigadier in the reserves.

During Qawasmi's tenure, lawlessness, factional and clan fighting continued.

"I cannot agree to be a minister without jurisdiction since we need deeds rather than words," the Ma'an news agency quoted Qawasmi as having said.

He maintained he had warned Abbas "the situation might blow up if the domestic security is not controlled." He was concerned about "the accumulation of recruits by all forces."

Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas will fill the vacated post, for now. Shurab said he expected "it would be difficult for Hamas and Fatah to find or to agree upon a new personality." Therefore, Haniyeh will hold the post "at least for the next few months," Shurab added.

Former minister Sufian Abu Zaida, of Fatah, told United Press International that Qawasmi's resignation "will shorten the unity government's life. It is a very significant step," he said.

"It's another nail in the unity government's coffin," said Harari.

Abu Zaida expected the security situation to deteriorate still further. Security has been uppermost in people's minds, public opinion polls showed.

The dangerous streets and alleys are in addition to the dire economic situation. The unity government has not accepted international demands to recognize Israel, cease violence and abide by agreements that have been made with Israel. Consequently, the international community continued to boycott the Palestinian government and refrain from providing direct aid to it. Aid is channeled through the president's office.

Meanwhile, violence continues in the Gaza Strip: on Sunday and Monday, at least eight people were killed and 50 wounded, Ma'an reported. Analysts said it was not a reaction to Qawasmi's resignation.

Early Sunday hundreds of gunmen, most of them masked, deployed in main and side streets around the security forces' compounds, the Palestinian Center for Human Rights said.

"Gunmen exchanged fire indiscriminately in streets, at intersections and from the roofs of buildings," the report added.

The fighting escalated after two Fatah men, including an Al-Aqsa Martyrs Battalions commander, were assassinated. Then two journalists from a newspaper reportedly considered pro-Hamas were abducted and shot. Their bodies were dumped near a mosque. People were nabbed in the street, pulled out of cars, taken away, shot and wounded. A man was killed in crossfire and the circumstances under which another man was killed were not immediately known.

The Egyptian security delegation in Gaza brokered a cease-fire that collapsed Monday at 3 a.m. when gunmen opened fire near the home of Fatah's spokesman, killed his guard and another activist.

Israel has been steering clear of the turmoil but its ability to continue doing so depends, in part, on luck -- that a Palestinian rocket will not hit a school and kill children, for example.

According to an army spokesman, Palestinian militants -- most often members of the small Islamic Jihad -- have launched more than 300 rockets since a cease-fire went into effect last Nov. 25.

Some 230 rockets made it across the border, but the damage was small.

Every two to three days soldiers patrolling the border come under fire or a bomb explodes near them. Israel has been gradually escalating its retaliation. It launched its first targeted killing on March 28, the second on April 20 and a third -- deeper in the Gaza Strip -- on May 7. Engineering units cross the border to search for mines and tunnels near the fence.

The Cabinet Sunday began considering its options, influenced by the Winograd Commission's scathing report on last year's "hasty" decision to go to war in Lebanon.

Officials noted that so far the rockets had a limited impact and Palestinians are fighting one another inside Gaza, but that occupying the area would unite them against Israel.

"It's easy to decide to go in but you've got to consider all the consequences," said Maj. Gen. in the reserves Amos Gilad, who heads the defense minister's political-security bureau.

In an apparent allusion to criticism that the government had launched the Lebanon war without having an exit strategy, Gilad said: "Every decision must be examined from end to the beginning."

One must prepare "the option" of a large scale operation "and this is what is being done, but the question is whether that (plan) is really a magic solution or you create new problems."

Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that Israeli action might be military, economic, diplomatic or a combination. Infrastructure Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, who had been defense minister, advocated more targeted killings "not only against the perpetrators (of attacks) but also against the planners and those who bring them (to the launching areas)." The Cabinet is expected to continue its deliberations.