22 killed as Gaza clashes rage
Pastor Dale Morgan
Sunday January 28, 7:34 AM *
22 killed as Gaza clashes rage*
Another seven Palestinians died in clashes between rival factions in
Gaza, bringing to 22 the death toll in three days of bitter fighting
that has torpedoed talks on forming a unity government.
Four were killed in early morning firefights in central Gaza City,
medical sources said, while a fifth died of wounds suffered Thursday.
Late on Saturday an 11-year-old youth and a member of the ruling Hamas
Islamist movement were killed.
Rival supporters of Hamas and the Fatah faction loyal to Palestinian
president Mahmud Abbas have fought running gun battles and fired off
volleys of mortars and grenades in the densely populated streets of Gaza
City since Thursday night, medics and witnesses said.
In addition, tit-for-tat kidnappings continued with 19 members of both
Fatah and Hamas nabbed in three different abductions in the Gaza Strip,
according to security forces.
The fighting, the fiercest since Hamas won parliamentary elections one
year ago, has also left around 50 people injured, medical officials said.
Amid the mounting casualties, the ruling Islamists suspended
long-running talks with Fatah Friday night on forming a national unity
government, and on Sunday Hamas boycotted a national dialogue meeting
grouping the various factions.
Hamas accused the president's party of provoking the latest fighting.
"The unity government talks were on the verge of full agreement and the
announcement of a unity government when putschists inside Fatah ...
rushed to blow up the situation to serve their own interests and a
foreign agenda," it said.
The accusations flew both ways.
"It's clear that Hamas doesn't want the dialogue to succeed. The
escalation began with Hamas," said Fatah spokesman Tawfiq Abu Khussa.
The Arab League condemned the latest fighting as "irrational and
unacceptable," while Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood lashed out at both
parties to the conflict.
"They speak responsible words and yet the fighting continues," said
Muslim Brotherhood supreme guide Mohammed Mehdi Akef.
UN special coordinator for the Middle East peace process, Alvaro de
Soto, called on all parties "to cease clashes and comply with
international humanitarian law by refraining from acts which endanger
civilians."
The Organisation of the Islamic Conference also expressed "deep regrets"
over the clashes and urged "the Palestinian leadership to return to the
national dialogue table."
Hamas early Saturday launched rocket-propelled grenades at the
headquarters of the Fatah-dominated Preventive Security force and lobbed
mortars at the home of Rashid Abu Shabak, the Gaza security chief loyal
to Abbas.
Grenades late Friday hit the home of Palestinian foreign minister Mahmud
al-Zahar, a Hamas leader.
The streets of Gaza City were deserted Saturday as storekeepers
shuttered up their shops and residents stayed put in the relative safety
of their homes.
But the fighting resumed Saturday evening as Hamas gunmen perched on the
roof of a Gaza City mosque traded fire with Palestinian security
officers in the neighbouring headquarters of the preventative security
force.
Among the victims of the two-day surge in violence were a two-year-old
child who was caught in the crossfire of a firefight in the south Gaza
town of Khan Yunis and a 16-year-old boy killed in Jabaliya, according
to medics.
In the West Bank, Palestinian police swinging batons and firing into the
air, clashed with about 200 Hamas supporters who rallied to denounce
Friday's shooting of a Hamas member in Tulkarem.
Hamas has called for Abbas, who is in Davos, Switzerland for the World
Economic Forum, to return immediately to the Palestinian territories to
help put an end to the mounting bloodshed.
Clashes broke out when Abbas called last month for early elections, a
move Hamas dubbed an attempted coup d'etat.
Subsequent clashes between Fatah and Hamas supporters killed more than
30 people between mid-December and early January.
The two-week lull that followed revived hopes of a deal on a unity
government that would satisfy the demands of the European Union and the
United States for a resumption of direct aid.
Fatah and Hamas had on Tuesday begun a new round of unity talks, two
days after a meeting between Abbas and exiled Hamas leader Khaled
Meshaal in Syria in which they said "considerable progress" had been made.