GAZA CITY, Nov 12: Hamas police killed six people in Gaza City on Monday as hundreds of thousands gathered to commemorate the death of Yasser Arafat in the biggest Fatah party rally since it was ousted by the Islamists.

Another 130 people were wounded when the Hamas-run police force opened fire as crowds threw rocks at them, accusing them of being a proxy for Iran and its ally Syria, witnesses and medics said.

Palestinian television showed groups of protesters and armed men running through the streets and police beating a Fatah supporter with wooden batons.

The deaths added salt to the wounds of already bitter divisions among Palestinians, with the head of the secular Fatah party’s parliamentary bloc ruling out talks with the Islamists.

“There will be no dialogue and no discussions with the killers and coup-makers of Hamas, no dialogue with those who do not believe in dialogue but only understand the language of blood and murder,” Azzam Ahmed said.

“The blood of today’s martyrs will be fuel for the resistance against them,” he added in a statement from his office.

Hamas blamed Fatah gunmen for instigating the clashes, accusing them of firing down on police from the rooftops around the square.

They “opened fire on Palestinian police, wounding four of them, then a group within the rally started throwing rocks at police, and the clashes ensued,” Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said at a press conference.

His account was disputed by an AFP correspondent and several witnesses, who said Hamas police opened fire on the demonstration.

Hours earlier the city centre had been filled with a sea of the yellow flags of the party founded by Arafat and currently led by president Mahmud Abbas, whose forces were driven from the Gaza Strip in a bloody takeover in mid-June.

People had streamed into the city from across the impoverished coastal strip, eager to pay their respects to the father of the Palestinian cause.—AFP