Factional feuding raged on in the Gaza Strip on Monday with nine Palestinians killed in the deadliest three days of violence in months, posing a serious challenge to the unity government.
Isolated pockets of shooting were reported across the densely populated and dangerous Palestinian territory, with security forces loyal to the Fatah party of President Mahmoud Abbas reporting a major Hamas ambush on a training camp.
A fighter from the armed wing of Hamas, Fatah’s bitter rival and the senior partner in the two-month-old Palestinian unity government, was shot dead and another Hamas supporter wounded in Gaza City, medics and witnesses said.
Ibrahim Mounia (40), who belonged to the Islamist movement’s Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, was killed in eastern Gaza City overnight when unknown gunmen ambushed a minibus carrying fighters from the unit, the sources said.
Another Hamas loyalist was wounded when gunmen opened fire near a checkpoint controlled by national security, a service dominated by members of Fatah.
Nine Palestinians have been now killed in factional fighting since Sunday and more than 50 wounded, dealing a major blow to the struggling unity government just two months after it took office precisely to end such feuding.
Despite repeated promises from Palestinian leaders, security services have proved incapable of imposing law and order in the increasingly chaotic territory where kidnappings, clan clashes and factional feuding are rife.
And in another major blow to the fledgling administration, Interior Minister Hani al-Qawasmeh resigned on Monday, leaving Prime Minister Ismail Haniya to assume responsibility for his portfolio until a permanent replacement is found.
Several Palestinians were also wounded in fighting near Karni, which is the main import and export terminal for goods between the Gaza Strip and Israel, said General Ali Qayssi from Abbas’s presidential guard.
Qayssi charged that dozens of members of the Executive Force — a controversial Hamas paramilitary force — had surrounded a presidential force training camp and were firing grenades and anti-tank fire.
”They should not be tiring in this area because there are oil reserves that could explode,” Qayssi said by telephone.
In a bid to clamp down on the spiralling troubles, Haniya was expected to call a meeting of security commanders at midday to discuss a prospective security deployment.
His government authorised the deployment of security forces under one leadership on Monday in a bid to contain the crisis after the interior minister resigned in the wake of the deadliest factional fighting in two months.
Qawasmeh, an independent whose appointment was the subject of marathon talks between the two coalition partners, resigned saying he had not been granted adequate authority and accused the government of not taking security seriously.
The Interior Ministry is one of several key portfolios that the power-sharing deal stipulated should be in the hands of an independent.
Fatah and Hamas took office in the first government on March 17 following a landmark power-sharing deal concluded in Saudi Arabia designed to end infighting that killed 100 Palestinians in the two preceding months.
Talks convened by Haniya late on Monday with members of Fatah ended with both factions pledging their support for the power-sharing deal brokered in Saudi Arabia last February and the Egyptian-brokered truce declared on Sunday.
”The two sides agreed the clashes must end and that armed men must withdraw from the streets,” Haniya’s spokesperson Ghazi Hamad said. — Sapa-AFP