GAZA CITY, May 14: Interior minister Hani al-Qawasmeh resigned from the Palestinian unity government on Monday amid the deadliest factional fighting in two months in a major blow to the fledgling administration.

Four people were killed in clashes between loyalists of president Mahmud Abbas's secular Fatah faction and prime minister Ismail Haniya's Islamist Hamas movement as a ceasefire announced late on Sunday failed to take hold.

Qawasmeh, an independent whose appointment was the subject of marathon talks between the two coalition partners, charged he had not been granted adequate authority and accused the government of not taking security seriously.

“I resigned from my position because I am not willing to be a purely decorative interior minister without authority,” he told a news conference.

“I reached the conclusion the whole (security) situation is not being dealt with seriously... The combined force that has been agreed are opposing forces that are fighting as we speak,” he said.

The Palestinian government took office on March 17 following a landmark power-sharing deal between Fatah and Hamas, and was created precisely to end similar infighting that killed 100 Palestinians in the two preceding months.

“The government decided today to deploy immediately security forces under control of the joint operation room and under the control of prime minister Ismail Haniya,” information minister Mustafa Barghuti told a news conference.

Adopting unusually strong language in vowing to tackle the security chaos endemic in the lawless territory, Barghuti added: “We will not let Gaza become a new Somalia. We will attack the security mess and beat it inside its home.” Haniya urged Palestinians to protect the power-sharing agreement reached in Saudi Arabia and called Fatah and Hamas representatives to a meeting at his office later on Monday.

—AFP