Gunmen from rival Palestinian factions fought street battles on Tuesday in a new surge of deadly violence that threatens to topple the government and drive the territory closer to civil war.
Mortar shells slammed into Prime Minister Ismail Haniya’s home and the seafront compound of President Mahmoud Abbas as hospitals became battlegrounds in the latest bout of fighting that has killed 18 people in 24 hours.
The apparently no-holds-barred conflict threatens the very foundations of a Hamas-Fatah coalition that took office less than three months ago in a bid to halt the political feuding that has killed nearly 180 people since December.
Heavily armed fighters manned checkpoints of concrete blocks and tyres as others lay low on rooftops in Gaza City, where columns of black smoke spewed into the sky and building fronts were riddled with countless bullet holes.
Abbas’s office accused leaders of the rival Islamist movement Hamas of plotting a coup and leading Gaza towards civil war while his Fatah faction warned it could pull out of the shaky unity government.
”All the information and all the facts point to a faction, to which political and military leaders of Hamas belong, who are plotting a coup against Palestinian legitimacy,” the presidency said.
It charged that the Hamas leaders in question were ”pushing the homeland towards the throes of a dreadful civil war” and issued a plea on behalf of Abbas for an immediate ceasefire and serious dialogue.
Fatah announced that the party’s central committee was examining whether it should remain in government and slammed Hamas for ”looking to annihilate the Palestinian Authority and create a republic of hate and death” in Gaza.
Haniya’s office weighed in with a statement charging that ”parties linked to enemies tried to bring down the national unity government militarily”.
Defying the latest Egyptian-brokered ceasefire, Gaza plunged into renewed violence five days ago just weeks after a bout of strife left 54 people killed when tempers boiled over how to implement a flagship government security plan.
Security officials said three mortar shells exploded inside Abbas’s compound on Tuesday while a fourth struck the modest home of Haniya in the Shati refugee camp, although neither leader was present at the time.
A national security officer was killed in the central Gaza Strip on Tuesday after Hamas fighters encircled two camps of the Fatah-loyalist force, bringing to 18 the number of Palestinians killed since Monday.
Overnight, assailants fired more than 50 mortar shells against the Gaza City headquarters of the preventive security service loyal to Fatah, according to security sources, who gave no details about possible casualties.
Rival activists went on an arsonist rampage, torching about a dozen homes of Fatah and Hamas members throughout the territory, the same sources said.
Hamas activists also kidnapped two Palestine TV technicians and blew up the building where they were abducted in Gaza City, a television official said.
Twenty-four Palestinians have now been killed in the lawless and radicalised territory awash with weapons since the latest bout of internecine bloodshed erupted last Thursday following weeks of calm.
Among the dead was Jamal Abu al-Jadian, a local chief of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades loosely affiliated to Fatah, who was killed when gunmen riddled his wounded body with 40 bullets at the entrance to Beit Hanun hospital.
An International Committee of the Red Cross official said four patients were killed and 10 people wounded on Monday at Beit Hanun Hospital, which was no longer functioning and nearly occupied by one party to the conflict.
”We are deeply, deeply concerned about this,” said Nasr Iyad, charging that the clashes were ”seriously affecting” health service provision.
”We cannot concentrate or write answers because of the sound of bullets of explosives. We’re frightened,” said Islam, a student sitting his school matriculation exams in Tal al-Hawa where fighting had been among the heaviest.
The clashes, coupled with renewed Israeli air strikes against the Gaza Strip and a surge in Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel, has cast a deep shadow over international efforts to jumpstart the dormant Middle East peace process. — AFP
