Last update - 00:00 24/10/2007
Amnesty blasts Fatah, Hamas over civilian deaths in Gaza clashes
By The Associated Press
Human rights group Amnesty International harshly criticized rival Palestinian factions Hamas and Fatah for harming civilians in their deadly clashes, in a report it released Wednesday.
The 58-page report, "Torn apart by factional strife," said about 350 Palestinians were killed during the first months of 2007 in Palestinian infighting in the Gaza Strip, and many were noncombatants.
The clashes peaked in mid-June, when Hamas militants ousted pro-Fatah security forces in the Gaza Strip in a bloody coup.
After the Hamas takeover, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah dismissed the Hamas-led Cabinet and formed his own government, which controls the West Bank. Hamas, led by deposed Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, continues to rule Gaza.
During the clashes, militants mounted attacks from civilian apartment buildings and hospitals and targeted rival patients in their hospital beds, the London-based organization said. Militants used crowded residential neighborhoods as war zones, firing mortars, rocket-propelled grenades and bullets from civilian buildings.
The Abbas government condemned the report, and a Hamas spokesman said his government wants to open a new page.
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