GAZA, Jan 4: Palestinian fighters bulldozed a barricade on the Gaza Strip’s border with Egypt, disrupted traffic across the frontier and stormed government offices on Wednesday in growing unrest ahead of elections later this month.

The fighters, renegade members of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades militant group in President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah faction, went on the rampage after police arrested a local leader on suspicion of involvement in the kidnapping of three Britons last week.

After commandeering a bulldozer to cheers from onlookers, fighters smashed through concrete blocks lining the border near the Palestinian refugee camp of Yibna, witnesses said.

Palestinians swarmed through into no-man’s land. Egyptian police fired twice in the air to ward off Palestinian youths who cut through a fence on the Egyptian side of the frontier. But scores of Palestinians reached Egyptian soil, witnesses said.

Egypt had no immediate comment on the incident. It was a further sign of chaos deepening in Gaza since Israel withdrew in September after 38 years of occupation, turning the territory into a restive testing ground for Palestinian statehood.

Abbas has come under growing pressure from within Fatah to delay the Jan. 25 parliamentary election in which the faction is widely expected to lose ground to Hamas group.

Sworn to Israel’s destruction, Hamas is riding high on a wave of popularity among Palestinians over its suicide bombings, corruption-free reputation and extensive charity network.

Renegade gunmen earlier ordered passengers to leave the European Union-monitored Rafah border terminal and blocked access to it for more than an hour after taking over several government offices in the border town and kicking out workers.

They said they allowed the terminal to reopen after security forces told them where their leader, Ala Al-Hams, was detained.

Al-Hams was taken into custody on Tuesday in connection with the abduction last week of British aid worker Kate Burton and her parents as they visited Rafah.

They were freed unharmed after three days in captivity.

There has been a rash of abductions in Gaza since the Israeli pullout. The parents of Rachel Corrie, a US activist who was run over and killed by an Israeli bulldozer in Rafah in 2003, almost became kidnap victims on Wednesday.

Craig and Cindy Corrie were visiting a friend in Rafah when gunmen arrived, apparently intent on seizing them, witnesses said. But the would-be kidnappers were ordered out by a neighbour who belongs to Palestinian security forces.

The gunmen who stormed the Rafah terminal said they would prevent voting in the town in the parliamentary election unless Palestinian security forces freed their leader.

Militants also renewed rocket fire from Gaza into Israel late on Wednesday.—Reuters