Gunmen set fire to Palestinian PM's office, Parliament

MIDDLE EAST: Gunmen set fire to the Palestinian prime minister's office and parliament on Monday as fighting escalated between followers of the ruling Hamas militant group and President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah movement.

In the latest sign of a deepening political crisis in the Palestinian territories, Abbas ordered security forces to take control of the streets in the wake of the clashes and vandalism. Hamas and Abbas have been locked in an intensifying power struggle since the Islamists took over the government in March after trouncing Fatah in parliamentary elections.

Witnesses said the Ramallah office of Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, a senior Hamas leader, was empty when gunmen from the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, part of Fatah, entered.

Haniyeh is based in Gaza, the militant group's stronghold, and does not have access to the city of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank because of Israeli curbs on travel by Hamas members.

The gunmen burned an upper floor of the multi-storey building and tossed furniture out the windows before police arrived and removed them. They also set fire to parliament in Ramallah after repeatedly firing into the building.

Fire engines rushed to both scenes to douse the flames as gunfire echoed around the streets, witnesses said.

Masked gunmen also kidnapped a Hamas legislator in Ramallah before releasing him soon after, a Palestinian official said. Several other Hamas lawmakers in Ramallah, fearing for their safety, took refuge in Abbas's compound, he added.

At the core of the current tension is a referendum Abbas has called for July 26 on a manifesto for Palestinian statehood that implicitly recognises Israel. Hamas, which seeks to destroy the Jewish state, has labelled the referendum a coup attempt.

Hussein el-Sheikh, a Fatah official, blamed earlier attacks by Hamas gunmen on forces loyal to Abbas in the southern Gaza town of Rafah for the West Bank violence.

"Hamas has to understand that their attacks will be met and will not be confined to Gaza and Rafah. It is going to spread to the West Bank and everywhere," he said.

Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said the vandalism was part of continued attempts "to bring down the government".

"The bypassing of the government by the president and stripping it of its authority gave the Fatah gunmen the green light to attack government offices and sabotage them," he said.

Abbas later met Hamas leaders in Gaza in an attempt to cool the situation. He told reporters both sides wanted calm.

But across Gaza as midnight approached, thousands of Hamas supporters hit the streets chanting anti-Fatah slogans, witnesses said.

Abbas's "state of alert" came after Hamas militants besieged a headquarters of the Preventive Security Service, loyal to Abbas, in Rafah.

The Hamas gunmen fired rocket-propelled grenades and anti-tank rockets at the compound, witnesses said. Five people were wounded in the clash in Rafah, which followed the killing earlier in the day of a gunman from a Hamas paramilitary unit. Around 20 people have been killed in internal fighting in Gaza in the past month.

Earlier, Hamas backed away from a parliamentary showdown with Abbas over the referendum. Parliament had convened to consider a motion by Hamas to declare it illegal. Hamas said it would delay lodging the motion until June 20, saying it would allow more time for talks.

Hamas has a parliamentary majority. But there appeared to be little chance that Abbas, who has wide presidential powers and was elected separately in early 2005, would consider passage of the motion binding.

Opinion polls show strong popular support for the manifesto penned by Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails and rejected as a non-starter by Israel because of its call for a Palestinian state in the entire West Bank and in the Gaza Strip.

Ramallah, Tuesday, Reuters