GAZA CITY, 16 May 2007 — Fourteen Palestinians were killed and 50 others were wounded in clashes between Fatah and Hamas gunmen yesterday after the rival factions agreed Monday night to end the fighting and deploy joint security forces on Gaza Strip streets. The death toll has now climbed to 19 since the armed clashes erupted on Sunday, witnesses and medical sources said.
The Fatah movement headed by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas accused bitter rivals Hamas of a brazen attack on a presidential guard camp and ambush near the Karni Crossing between the Gaza Strip and Israel.
Six people died as clashes escalated elsewhere, bringing to 22 the number of Palestinians killed in just three days of the deadliest factional violence in months with Gaza City deserted except for prowling gangs of masked men.
The fighting, on top of Monday’s resignation of Interior Minister Hani Al-Qawasmeh, has dealt a major blow to the national unity government set up two months ago by Fatah and the Islamist movement Hamas to quell factionalism.
Eight officers in the Abbas-controlled national security service were killed near Karni and more than 20 wounded, a medical source said, in the deadliest single attack in Gaza since the new unity government took office on March 17.
Palestinian television broadcast images of five bodies wearing the uniform of the Fatah-dominated forces lying face down in the mud, their legs splayed.
A sixth body was shown slumped in a vehicle as paramedics piled several corpses onto the same stretcher and ferried them away to a mortuary.
The national security force accused a controversial Hamas paramilitary force and the group’s military wing, Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades, of trying to stage a coup.
“Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades and members of Hamas have not stopped firing against the security force headquarters, which proves its clear intention for a coup d’etat against the legal organs of the Palestinian Authority,” it said.
The service said its officers were scrambled to reinforce the presidential guard camp when they came under Israeli tank fire and Hamas shooting, and while trying to flee, their vehicle flipped over.
“An armed group from Hamas arrived on the scene and finished off the wounded by shooting them in the head and killing them in cold blood,” it said.
Hamas denied any responsibility for the clashes and said that one of its fighters shot dead earlier yesterday was killed with “American bullets,” an allusion to a US decision to supply arms to Abbas-controlled forces.
Another security officer loyal to Abbas, a civilian as well as the Hamas fighter were killed around Gaza City, medics and witnesses said.
Gunfire reverberated through streets and alleys, amid reports of tit-for-tat kidnappings while markets remained shuttered and schools closed, leaving the streets empty for security forces and gunmen, witnesses said.
— With input from agencies
