GAZA CITY, May 15: Eight Palestinians were killed when gunmen ambushed a rival force in Gaza on Tuesday as spiralling factional fighting claimed 13 lives, jeopardising the future of a fledgling unity government.
The Fatah movement headed by Palestinian president Mahmud 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.
Five people died as clashes escalated elsewhere, bringing to 21 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 bloodiest 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 Islamist faction'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 on Tuesday was killed with “American bullets”, an allusion to a US decision to supply arms to Abbas-controlled forces.
A second Hamas activist, a security officer loyal to Abbas, and two civilians were also killed in clashes around Gaza City that raged on into the evening, medics and witnesses said.
A further 500 presidential guards crossed into the Gaza Strip from Egypt, but a security official insisted the return of the Abbas loyalists from training was unconnected to the unrest.
Israeli soldiers from across the Gaza border also shot dead a Palestinian near the scene of fighting at Karni, although Defence Minister Amir Peretz told army radio that “we have no intention of getting involved in these clashes.” A homemade rocket fired from Gaza struck a house in the southern Israeli city of Sderot, seriously wounding a civilian, rescue services said.—AFP
