selected quotes from the puppet master and co.:

“No one wants to abandon the hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people in the Gaza Strip to the mercies of a terrorist organization,” a White House spokesman, Scott Stanzel, said in Washington.

“We are waiting, watching the situation very closely,” she [Israeli foreign minister] added. “But on the other hand we are going to keep this strategy of dialogue with the moderates and to send some hope for those who support their vision.”

The split between Hamas and Fatah in the government, Regev said, "may open options for us to work with moderate Palestinians."

(...) Some officials hinted that Israel might unfreeze tax revenues worth hundreds of millions of dollars that it has withheld from the Palestinians.(...) "What we have witnessed is a fascist, military coup. Hamas cannot control the Palestinian people with their machine guns. They may have taken a few government buildings but Fatah and the Palestine Liberation Organisation still has the people in Gaza," he [Ziad Abu Ein, a Fatah leader in Ramallah] said. "In a few days there will be a new uprising in Gaza when people discover the truth of Hamas. There will be a big fight."
(...) Salam Fayyad - an economist, MP and former finance minister - is well known in western financial circles following an eight-year stint at the World Bank and six years as the International Monetary Fund's representative to the Palestinian Authority. Born near Tulkarm in the West Bank in 1952, he was educated in Lebanon and Texas, and spent 20 years in the US. He returned to Palestine in 2002 as finance minister, working hard to stamp out official corruption. After Hamas won elections in 2006, he rejected overtures to be prime minister. He returned to the finance ministry this year as part of a Saudi-brokered deal to establish the ill-fated national unity government. He is married with three children.

(...) Barring some dramatic reversal after the latest fighting - such as the improbable survival of the Hamas-Fatah coalition government - 1.4 million Palestinians in what is now being dubbed "Hamastan" will not only be physically cut off from their compatriots in the West Bank but will also be ruled by a movement that advocates armed resistance and is boycotted by Israel and the international community.
(...) "This situation isn't good for Israel. It's actually dreadful," said the veteran Yediot Aharonot analyst Roni Shaked. "The Palestinians are destroying their future with their own hands."

(...) The United States had quietly encouraged Mr. Abbas to dissolve the Palestinian government and dismiss Prime Minister Ismail Haniya, steps that Mr. Abbas announced Thursday, administration officials said. Before the announcement, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice telephoned Mr. Abbas to reiterate American support for the move, they said.
(...) “President Abbas has exercised his lawful authority as the president of the Palestinian Authority, as the leader of the Palestinian people,” Ms. Rice said.
(...) “Nobody wants to abandon the hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people in the Gaza Strip to the mercies of a terrorist organization,” said the State Department spokesman, Sean McCormack. “We’re certainly not going to participate in extinguishing the hopes of a whole swath of the Palestinian population to live in a Palestinian state.”