GAZA CITY, Dec 20: Up to seven people were shot and injured in Gaza City early on Thursday as Palestinian Authority (PA) police clashed with armed protesters who formed a human shield around a senior Hamas leader.
Police sealed off streets around the home of Abdul Aziz al-Rantissi as 300-400 protesters, some bearing rifles, moved in to stop them carrying orders of Yasser Arafat, under massive international and Israeli pressure to curb the extremist movements.
Bullets flew through the night, until police pulled out of the area around 5am, in order to avoid confrontation with people flocking to mosques for Fajr prayers.
Hamas and police traded accusations about who was responsible for a disputed toll of civilian and police wounded. Gaza City’s Al-Shifa hospital refused to comment on the number.
Al-Rantissi’s supporters expected more trouble.
“We expect them to come back with more weapons to try to raid the house,” a Hamas supporter said. “We’ll stone them the same as last night.”
Palestinian security forces said in a statement that police arrived at Rantissi’s house at 10.30pm on Wednesday to arrest him “when groups of gunmen opened fire on police and the Palestinian people.
“There are two police wounded and five civilians,” the statement said.
“The Palestinian police blame Dr Rantissi for what happened last night, especially the injured, and consider him wanted.”
But witness accounts said there was only police fire.
A Hamas statement said on Thursday morning: “Until this moment, Dr Rantissi is still in his house under siege” and accused the police of wounding two civilians with guns and grenades.
During the fighting, police shot one protester in the leg, demonstrators said. They said he was slightly wounded, but decided not to take him to a hospital for fear of arrest.
A quarter of an hour later, two more people were shot by police and taken to the hospital by ambulance, demonstrators said.
Rantissi said by phone during the pre-dawn siege: “I am refusing to be arrested by order of the CIA and the Mossad. There was a security meeting and then they came to arrest me.”
“I think they will make me a target for Apache missiles,” he added, referring to previous Israeli helicopter attacks on Palestinians.
Amid bursts of machinegun fire, hundreds of police in full riot gear retreated from the house to face the angry crowd on an adjacent street, regrouping three times throughout the rainy night.
Rantissi said: “They saw they were defeated and came back with a huge number of police.”
A nearby mosque called on locals, via loudspeaker, to awake and swarm around the house to protect the leader of the radical group.
Rantissi has been wanted by the Palestinian Authority since US President George W. Bush demanded Arafat make good on pledges to arrest hardliners on Dec 5.
Top Israeli and Palestinian officials met to discuss an Israeli pullout from Palestinian-controlled land. According to Palestinians, the meeting was a failure, although Israel forces pulled out of two West Bank villages later on Thursday.
Following a call by Washington, the Palestinian Authority had earlier tried to arrest another key Hamas leader, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the spiritual leader of the movement. Police backed down after they clashed with hundreds of protesters on Dec 5.
One Hamas supporter died from injuries received in those clashes.—AFP