Gaza truce in jeopardy as six Palestinians killed

MIDDLE EAST: Six Palestinians were killed on Thursday as new clashes threatened to destroy a three-day truce between warring factions Fatah and Hamas and shooting spread like wildfire through the Gaza Strip.

The trouble erupted outside the entrance to the Bureij and Nuseirat refugee camps in the heart of the territory, where a presidential guardsman loyal to Fatah was shot dead when Hamas gunmen ambushed a supply convoy from Egypt.

The man was identified as 24-year-old Ramadan al-Mushallah from Force 17, loyal to Palestinian president and Fatah leader Mahmud Abbas. Three more presidential guard members were killed in continued fighting in Nuseirat and altogether 70 people were wounded in Gaza, medical sources said.

A fifth Palestinian was killed in the northern town of Jabaliya where shooting broke out between Hamas militants and intelligence officers loyal to Fatah as violence spread elsewhere across the radicalised Gaza Strip.

The sixth, a member of Hamas's security forces, was killed in a gunbattle in Gaza City.

Meanwhile the guard of Palestinian Authority president Mahmud Abbas occupied Gaza Islamic University, a bastion of Hamas, a security source said as new clashes threatened to destroy a three-day truce between warring factions Fatah and Hamas and shooting spread like wildfire through the Gaza Strip.

Several armed men were arrested and weapons and explosives were confiscated following a search of the campus, the source said.

The presidential guard decided to move in after Hamas militants there fired mortar shells and rocket propelled grenades at the offices of the Palestinian presidency in Gaza City.

The Palestinian presidency in Ramallah in the West Bank blamed Hamas for the Gaza violence.

"The presidency strongly condemns the intentional and premeditated flare-up provoked by Hamas and its militiamen under lying pretexts," said presidency spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina in a statement late on Thursday.

The clashes were the worst violation yet of a tentative three-day truce between the rival factions. It began on Tuesday after several days of deadly internecine Palestinian fighting left 35 people dead.

The presidential guard accused gunmen from the Islamist Hamas of starting the violence by using an impromptu checkpoint to intercept a convoy from Egypt that was transporting tents and equipment for the presidential guard.

Hamas militants confiscated two trucks and took their contents to a mosque in Nuseirat, said the Force 17 spokesman on condition of anonymity, flatly denying that any weapons were in the convoy.

Fatah spokesman Tawfiq Abu Khussa rapidly accused Hamas of violating the ceasefire "by ambushing the presidential guard".

Hamas spokesman Ismail Radwan had earlier claimed that a large cargo of weapons had been transported the day before by a nameless Arab country to the presidential guard in the Gaza Strip.

Fatah denied receiving any such shipment. The head of Egypt's Gaza-based security delegation, Burhan Hammad, dismissed the allegations as a "total lie" intended to push bitter rivals Fatah and Hamas into an "arms race".

After Thursday's fighting resumed, Hammad, who personally helped to secure the ceasefire, slammed the "unjustified aggression targeting an aid convoy for the presidential guard," and again denied it carried weapons.

On Wednesday, Hamas accused Washington of trying to provoke a Palestinian civil war by freeing 86 million dollars to bolster Fatah security forces.

Gaza City, Friday, AFP