Last update - 00:00 11/05/2007
Six hurt as Hamas, Fatah clash in heaviest Gaza fighting in weeks
By Reuters
Rival Palestinian factions clashed in the Gaza Strip on Friday, causing at least six injuries, in some of the heaviest fighting in weeks, security officials and witnesses said.
The clashes erupted less than 48 hours after Palestinian security forces began deploying in Gaza under a new security plan.
Palestinians had hoped the deployment would help curb growing lawlessness and ease tensions between ruling Hamas Islamists and Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas's secular Fatah faction.
Hamas said the fighting began before dawn when members of Abbas' national security forces detained a member of Hamas' military wing.
The man was detained because he was suspected of being involved in firing on security forces overnight, according to a source with the national security forces.
Hamas militants responded by storming the facility where the man was being held and freeing him. At least two members of the national security forces were wounded, one seriously, in the gun fight.
In other clashes early Friday, at least one Hamas member was wounded, along with three others.
Internal fighting decreased after Hamas and Fatah formed a unity government two months ago, but tensions have remained high and a Western aid embargo on the Palestinian Authority remains in place.
Abbas and Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas had ordered the deployment of the police this week as part of the security plan.
But casting doubt over the effort, Palestinian Interior Minister Hani al-Qawasmi, an independent with no security background, said he did not order the move and renewed his threat to resign.
Militant groups, including Hamas's armed wing, urged the security forces not to take any actions against them.
Previous police deployments in Gaza have not fully secured the territory, which has sunk further into poverty and political disarray since Israel withdrew in 2005.