GAZA CITY, 2 January 2007 — Gaza’s ruling Hamas group launched a new crackdown on the rival Fatah movement early yesterday, arresting dozens of activists and barring public gatherings after Fatah anniversary celebrations sparked deadly violence throughout the Gaza Strip.
The fighting stretched into a second day, leaving a total of eight people dead and 60 wounded, despite an unusually conciliatory speech toward Hamas by Fatah’s leader, President Mahmoud Abbas.
The deaths were the first in Palestinian infighting in nearly two months. Hamas has ruled Gaza with a tight grip since routing pro-Fatah forces there in June. Last week, it said it would ban large-scale celebrations marking Fatah’s 43rd anniversary.
Fireworks lit the skies of Gaza after nightfall on Monday and Fatah backers fired rifles in the air all over Gaza, defying the ban and setting off armed clashes.
Five people died in fighting across Gaza on Monday, and a sixth died of his wounds yesterday morning, doctors said. Two others were killed in Gaza City early yesterday in a gunbattle between Hamas security men and a family affiliated with Fatah, leaving one Hamas policeman and a Fatah supporter dead.
The eight dead included three Hamas and three Fatah supporters, officials said. Also killed were an elderly man caught in a crossfire in northern Gaza and a 14-year-old Hamas supporter shot in the southern town of Khan Younis after he exited a mosque, relatives said.
Fatah said dozens of its activists were arrested on Monday night, and one of its leaders in Gaza City was briefly detained by Hamas forces who shaved off half his hair and mustache as humiliation.
Islam Shahwan, a spokesman for Hamas, confirmed only that his men made a number of arrests.
Mahmoud Al-Zahar, a senior Hamas official in Gaza, said the Gaza government “will pursue the killers and bring them to justice and punish them according to the law. We are not going to show mercy to these criminals.
Zahar also rejected Abbas’ call for new parliamentary elections in an effort to end the suffering the Palestinian people. He said Abbas did not present any new initiative. “He repeated an earlier initiative that contains a resumption of the dialogue with preconditions.”
“We are ready for unconditioned dialogue. If we sit on the same table, each side has the right to present what it has, and each side has the right to reject or accept what the other presents,” said Zahar.
Meanwhile, an Israeli missile strike on a Hamas target in the central Gaza Strip killed at least one Hamas fighter and wounded three others.
