Palestinian gunmen blow up UN club in Gaza City
GAZA, Sunday (Reuters)
Masked gunmen stormed into a club for United Nations workers in Gaza
City on Sunday and blew up the drinking hall in a new sign of spiralling
unrest ahead of a Palestinian election.
It was the first such attack in Gaza on a U.N. target and came
against a backdrop of growing unease among foreigners. Just over one day
earlier, a group freed three British hostages that had been seized to
demand foreign pressure on Israel.
The bombing was another big blow for President Mahmoud Abbas, just
hours after he had vowed to impose order ahead of a Jan. 25 election and
as militants announced the expiry of a de facto truce with Israel that
they had followed at his behest.
Gunmen burst into the U.N. club, one of the few places that alcohol
is served in conservative Muslim Gaza. It had been closed for the day.
The attackers tied up the security guard and struck him with gun butts.
Then they set explosives in front of the bar, unrolled a detonator
cable and blew up the charges, ripping up the roof and shattering the
windows.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility.
The United Nations is generally viewed with sympathy Gaza. Its agency
supporting Palestinian refugees and their descendants, more than half of
Gaza’s 1.4 million population, is the second biggest employer after the
Palestinian Authority.
“The club has been there for 50 years,” said one U.N. security
worker.
“This is the first time anything like this has happened.”
Non-essential U.N. staff had already left Gaza because of the danger
of kidnappings and a rash of violent protests and internal clashes.
“These events ... harm our international credibility and strengthen
Israel’s pretext to undermine peace and stop withdrawals,” Abbas said in
a New Year broadcast. |