GAZA CITY — At least 12 people have been killed in the worst inter-militia
clashes yet in the Palestinian Authority.
Palestinian Authority officials said that since Oct. 1 at least 12
people — several of them bystanders — were killed in fighting between
Hamas- and Fatah-aligned security agencies throughout the West Bank and Gaza
City. They said another 100 people were injured in gun and rocket-propelled
grenade battles in several PA cities, Middle East Newsline reported.
.
"The protest today was beyond acceptable legal norms and turned truly
into lawlessness," PA spokesman Ghazi Hamad, a Hamas member, said.
All but one of the casualties took place in the Gaza Strip in violence
that continued on Tuesday. More than a dozen people were injured in clashes
in the West Bank, which had been largely spared from Fatah-Hamas
confrontations.
The battles stemmed from Fatah-led protests of a failure by the PA to
pay salaries to the security forces or establish a national unity
government. Officials said the Hamas-aligned PA Interior Ministry sent its
new Special Forces unit to quell the protests.
The Special Forces has been headed by Yusef Zahar, brother of PA Foreign
Minister Mahmoud Zahar. Fatah's Al Aqsa Martyr's Brigades has threatened to
kill Zahar as well as PA Interior Minister Said Siyam and Hamas leader
Khaled Masha'al, the latter based in Damascus.
The fighting spread to such West Bank cities as Hebron, Jericho,
Nablus and Ramallah. Fatah gunmen, including officers from the Presidential
Guard, blocked roads and attacked government and Hamas offices.
At one point, Fatah fighters torched the Council of Ministers building
and Hamas party offices in the West Bank city of Ramallah. Later, a senior
Finance Ministry official was abducted and released.
"I appeal to all factions to be responsible, to abandon their
differences, and to ensure dialogue especially in the time we are facing an
Israeli threat to reoccupy Gaza Strip," PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, expected
to return to the PA from abroad on Tuesday, said.
The Palestinian Center for Human Rights said at least 115 people were
injured in the Fatah-Gaza battles. The group said the clashes began in Khan
Yunis and spread north to Gaza City.
"In the evening [of Oct. 1], clashes broke out in Al Bureij refugee
camp in the central Gaza Strip between supporters of Hamas and Fatah
movements," the center said.
Fatah gunmen torched the PA Agriculture Ministry and Civil Affairs
Ministry in Gaza City. The Palestinian Legislative Council and the Bank of
Palestine were also Fatah targets.
On late Monday, Fatah and Hamas, despite appeals by Egypt, renewed gun
battles in the Gaza Strip. At least two Hamas gunmen were killed in the
southern Gaza Strip near Rafah.
A shootout also took place in the West Bank city of Nablus. At one
point, Fatah gunmen sought to ambush the convoy of PA Deputy Prime Minister
Nasser Shaer. Shaer was not injured.
"I think the failure of Hamas to supply the financial and political
merchandise brought about this situation," former PA minister Sufian Abu
Zaydeh, a Fatah leader in the Gaza Strip, said. "What can change the
situation is a change in the attitude of Hamas, with Hamas becoming more
pragmatic in a manner that will be acceptable to the nations of the world."
