Six killed as Gaza gunbattles shatter truce
Middle East Desk Report

GAZA CITY—Deadly gunbattles are raging across Gaza City, shattering a fragile truce aimed at halting an increasingly violent power struggle between rival Palestinian factions. Five people were killed and 19 wounded in the latest bout of clashes in the impoverished Gaza Strip between supporters of the ruling Islamist Hamas movement and the rival Fatah party.
Violence has spiralled since Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas called Saturday for early elections, raising fears that the turf war between Hamas and Fatah could descend into all-out civil war. Since Saturday, 10 people have been killed, two of them teenagers trapped in the crossfire, and dozens wounded.
In the latest incidents, a Fatah loyalist was killed after being kidnapped by gunmen and another died of wounds sustained during clashes earlier in the day, medics said. Earlier two Fatah loyalists and a Hamas policeman were killed in gunbattles between the two rival groups in Gaza City. At least 19 people, including seven teenagers, were wounded.
Tensions were palpable across the city, where armed Hamas militants in black hoods and Islamic green bandannas were seen roaming the streets while crowds of mourners gathered for the funeral of a Fatah security man. The violence has continued despite a tenuous ceasefire agreed between the two groups late Sunday, with each side accusing the other of provoking the clashes.
“We in Fatah are sticking to the ceasefire agreement, but Hamas is the party that has not respected it and is seeking military escalations,” said Rawfiq Abu Khusa, a Fatah spokesman. Ismail Raduane, a Hamas spokesman, said “we respected the ceasefire and Hamas showed discipline, but it was Fatah and elements of the presidential security intelligence who started the violations.”
Egypt urged both factions to return to the truce, warning that continuing violence would lead to international loss of support for the Palestinians. Efforts to contain the crisis appeared to be gaining speed on Tuesday.
Hamas prime minister Ismail Haniya is to deliver an address in which aides said he would appeal for calm, and Organisation of the Islamic Conference chief Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu is set to meet both Abbas and Haniya. Haniya’s government has been boycotted by Israel and the West since it took office in March after a shock election win over Abbas’s long-dominant Fatah, plunging the Palestinian territories into their worst financial crisis.
Abbas called for new elections in a bid to end months of political deadlock following the collapse of talks on forming a national unity government. The Hamas-controlled government denounced that as tantamount to a coup. Abbas, who has been at loggerheads with Hamas since it took power, described the situation Monday as a “grave internal crisis.”
“I have called for early presidential and parliamentary elections so that the people can decide on the base of an acceptable program to preserve their national interests ... and put an end to the siege and crisis,” he said. “Any bullet shot anywhere is a loss for the Palestinian people and is not in our interest.”
Visiting British Prime MinisterTony Blair appealed to the international community to back the moderate president, who is grappling with one of the most dangerous crises in the Palestinian territories in decades.
Blair, who is now in the United Arab Emirates, called for an initiative to support the Palestinians and move toward a two-state solution for the Middle East conflict. A senior Palestinian official told AFP the initiative would be worked out in coordination with the United States and be unveiled by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice during her expected visit to the region early next year.