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Palestinian factions head up their rivalry { June 13 2007 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/06/13/MNG88QED491.DTLhttp://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/06/13/MNG88QED491.DTL
Palestinian factions heat up their rivalry
Hamas and Fatah military units attack symbols of power
Steven Erlanger, Isabel Kershner, New York Times
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Fighting between Hamas and Fatah in the Gaza Strip is beg...
(06-13) 04:00 PDT Jerusalem -- Gunmen of rival Palestinian factions Hamas and Fatah sharply escalated their fight for supremacy on Tuesday, with Hamas taking over much of the northern Gaza Strip in what is beginning to look increasingly like a civil war.
Five days of revenge attacks on individuals -- including executions, kneecappings and even tossing handcuffed prisoners off tall apartment towers -- on Tuesday turned into something larger and more organized: attacks on symbols of power and the deployment of military units. About 25 Palestinians were killed and more than 100 wounded, Palestinian medics said.
In one Hamas attack on a Fatah security headquarters in northern Gaza near Jebaliya Camp, at least 21 Palestinians were reported killed and another 60 wounded, said Moaweya Hassanein of the Palestinian Health Ministry.
After a senior Fatah leader in northern Gaza, Jamal Al-Jedyan, was killed Monday, Fatah's elite Presidential Guards, who are being trained by the United States and its allies, fired rocket-propelled grenades at the house of Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas in the Shati refugee camp near Gaza City.
An hour later, Hamas' military wing fired four mortar shells at the presidential office compound of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah, who is in the West Bank, said Fatah spokesman Tawfiq Abu Khoussa.
"Hamas is seeking a military coup against the Palestinian Authority," he said.
Hamas made a similar accusation against Fatah. Hamas, which has an Islamist ideology, demanded that security forces loyal to Fatah, the more nationalist and secular movement, abandon their positions in northern and central Gaza.
Fatah forces were ordered to defend their positions Tuesday evening, and Fatah's leaders said they would suspend participation in the unity government with Hamas, which began in March, until the fighting ends.
That agreement to govern jointly, negotiated under Saudi auspices, put Fatah ministers into a Hamas-led government in an effort to secure renewed international aid and recognition and to stop what was already serious fighting between the two factions.
But the new government has failed to achieve either goal, and it appeared to many in Gaza that the gunmen were not listening to their political leaders. Abbas is under increasing pressure to abandon the unity government he championed and to try once again to order new elections, which Hamas has said it will oppose by any means.
The head of the Egyptian mediation team, Lt. Col. Burhan Hamad, said that neither side responded to his call Tuesday to hold truce talks. "It seems they don't want to come," said Hamad, who has brokered several brief cease-fires between the two. "They have killed all hope. They have killed the future."
Hamas' military advances set off alarm bells in Israel and abroad. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert proposed stationing international peacekeepers in Gaza to stop Hamas from smuggling weapons into the territory from Egypt. However, he ruled out assistance to Abbas' forces.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called on the Palestinians to back Fatah leaders' efforts "to restore law and order." The European Union's external relations commissioner, Benita Ferrero-Waldner, said the EU was "extremely concerned ... about the risk of a civil war."
The streets of Gazan cities were empty of pedestrians and cars. People ventured out to buy food, but only to the next building, and parents kept children out of school.
At Shifa Hospital in Gaza, which Hamas gunmen patrolled, bodies of four Hamas fighters lay on the floor of the emergency room, including Muhammad al-Mqeir, 25. His closest friend called him a martyr, even though he was killed by another Palestinian, from Fatah. "They are not Palestinians, they are lost people," the friend said of Fatah. Doctors said that the emergency room was overloaded and that the hospital was running short of blood.
After warning Fatah, Hamas attacked a Fatah-affiliated security headquarters in Gaza City and declared northern Gaza "a closed military zone."
An estimated 200 Hamas fighters surrounded Fatah security headquarters there, firing mortar shells and grenades at the compound, where some 500 security officers were positioned. The headquarters fell to Hamas.
Hamas gunmen also exchanged fire with Fatah forces at the southern security headquarters in the southern town of Khan Yunis. There, the two sides fought a gunbattle near a hospital. Fifteen children attending a kindergarten in the line of fire were rushed into the hospital.
Angering Hamas, Fatah militants abducted and killed the nephew of Abdel Aziz Rantisi, the Hamas leader assassinated by Israel in April 2004.
Hamas gunmen attacked the home of a Fatah security official with mortars and grenades, killing his 14-year-old son and three women inside, security officials said. Other Fatah gunmen stormed the house of a Hamas lawmaker and burned it down.
Fatah forces also attacked the headquarters, in Gaza, of Hamas' television station, Al-Aqsa TV, but Hamas said later that it had repelled the attack. In the West Bank, where Fatah is stronger and the Israeli occupation forces keep Hamas fighters underground, Fatah forces took over the Ramallah offices of Al-Aqsa TV.
Since Monday morning, at least 43 Palestinians have died in the renewed fighting, after more than 50 had died in the outburst last month that ended in a brief cease-fire.
Chronicle news services contributed to this report.
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