Hamas fighters launched another wave of fierce attacks on their Fatah rivals on Wednesday, plunging the Gaza Strip closer towards civil war, in what appeared to be a carefully coordinated effort to seize control on the streets. Gunmen from Hamas and its rival faction Fatah fought heavy battles in the north and south of the strip, with the Islamist movement repeatedly gaining the upper hand.
Hamas fighters seized security posts that provide control of two major roads running north to south through Gaza and took control of Khan Yunis, a town in the south. On Wednesday night they began attacking several security posts in Gaza City.
At least 17 Palestinians were killed, including several civilians, among them two workers for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency. Dozens more were injured, including two other United Nations staff. In the past four days of fighting at least 65 people have died and there appears to be little sign of an end to the conflict.
”This is madness, the madness that is going on in Gaza now,” said Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian President and Fatah leader, who remains in the West Bank.
Abbas spoke by telephone to Khaled Meshal, the head of Hamas’s political bureau in Damascus, but they failed to agree a ceasefire.
In a broadcast on a Hamas radio station, the Islamist movement said it was preparing an offensive to seize Abbas’ presidential compound in Gaza City and the nearby national security headquarters. Hamas warned Fatah forces in northern Gaza to give up their weapons before Friday evening, while Fatah commanders told their forces to stay and fight.
At one stage yesterday several hundred people gathered in Gaza City to protest against the violence. Hamas gunmen tried to scatter the crowd by firing into the air, while elsewhere in the city snipers took up positions on several tower blocks.
This week’s fighting is the latest episode in a worsening power struggle between Hamas, which won elections last year, and Fatah. For more than six months the two have fought on the streets of Gaza, violating dozens of ceasefires and effectively tearing up a political deal in February that produced the coalition government.
There are growing calls for the deployment of an international peacekeeping force to the small, overcrowded and fraught Gaza Strip. Javier Solana, the European Union foreign policy chief, said the EU would consider sending troops if an international force was established. The Italian Foreign Minister, Massimo D’Alema, said he supported the idea and Ehud Olmert, the Israeli Prime Minister, has already raised the issue.
On the ground in Gaza on Wednesday the fighting appeared to be driving the national unity government towards collapse. Hamas fighters were able to take the town of Khan Yunis after a bomb destroyed a tunnel underneath a Fatah security headquarters. At least one man was killed and eight injured in the blast. Fatah forces retreated further south to the border town of Rafah and at least 40 Fatah gunmen were reported to have fled into Egypt. ”Khan Yunis is finished, but we are still holding on in Rafah,” said Ziad Sarafandi, a senior Fatah security official.
Near Gaza City several hundred men, women and children from the Bakr clan, allied to Fatah, surrendered and walked with raised arms into a nearby mosque. The clan, like many others in Gaza, has its own armed force of around 200 men.
The UN refugee agency warned that food deliveries and medical care were at risk. ”We are extremely concerned for the plight of the one million refugees who depend on UNRWA’s services,” said John Ging, director of the agency’s Gaza operation. ”However we cannot deliver food and medical services in the crossfire.”
In the West Bank Fatah gunmen in Nablus surrounded a pro-Hamas television company and attacked its offices. – Guardian Unlimited Â