GAZA, Dec 12: Palestinian security forces loyal to President Mahmud Abbas traded gunfire with Hamas policemen in Gaza on Tuesday as tensions soared after the killing of three young sons of one of Mr Abbas’s top intelligence officials.

Hospital officials said two members of Mr Abbas’s security forces had been wounded, one seriously. A spokesman for the governing Hamas movement’s police force said two of their men had been wounded. One was in critical condition.

Both sides accused the other of starting the gunfight in the southern Gaza Strip town of Khan Younis. The Hamas spokesman said members of Mr Abbas’s forces had been protesting and attacking public buildings.

Mahmud Abbas earlier ordered his security forces to deploy across Gaza after the killing of the three boys.

Tension between the moderate Abbas and Hamas has mounted since unidentified gunmen shot dead the children of Colonel Baha Balousha as they arrived at school on Monday. It was the first time children have been targeted in such an attack.

A senior official from Mr Abbas’s Fatah faction, Hussein al-Sheikh, said the Hamas government bore responsibility.

“Of course people very close to Hamas, to say the least, are behind the killings. We hold the government and the interior minister directly responsible,” Sheikh said.

“These are mafias, killer gangs,” he added, referring to the perpetrators of the drive-by shooting.

Senior Hamas lawmaker Mushir al-Masri angrily denied the militant movement had anything to do with the attack.

“It seems some Fatah leaders are exploiting the blood of innocent children to earn political gains. We hold those leaders fully responsible for the grave consequences that may result from the fabrication and lies they are making.”

CHILDREN PAY RESPECTS: Scores of children on their way to school paid their respects at a mourning tent erected in Gaza City for the dead boys. They then set fire to tyres in the streets to protest the killings, sending clouds of black smoke into the air.Angry mourners firing guns stormed the parliament compound during the funeral for the boys, aged six to nine.--Reuters