Rival Palestinian factions battled in the Gaza Strip on Sunday, raising the weekend death toll to at least two and 40 injured in the fiercest internal fighting since a ceasefire was declared nearly a month ago.

The heaviest fighting between the ruling Hamas Islamist group and Chairman Mahmoud Abbas's secular Fatah faction took place in the southern Gaza town of Rafah, where hundreds of rival gunmen took up positions on street corners and rooftops.

Hamas and Fatah pounded each other's positions with rocket-propelled grenades and machineguns, according to local residents, who took shelter indoors as the rivals fought block by block.

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Of the more than 40 Palestinians wounded in the fighting, at least 10 were in critical condition, hospital officials said. The number of injured overwhelmed the local hospital, forcing officials to send people to neighbouring towns for treatment.

The latest clash erupted hours after Palestinian gunmen infiltrated the Israeli border in southern Gaza, sparking a gunbattle with Israel Defense Forces which killed one Palestinian gunman.

The United States is providing money for military training of members of Abbas's presidential guard and says Hamas's armed wing and executive force receive support from Iran.

Fatah has asked Israel to permit a new shipment of arms and ammunition from Egypt and other Arab states to bolster its forces, and Israeli officials are considering the request.

The once dominant Fatah entered a unity government in March with Hamas, victors in a parliamentary election 18 months ago, in an effort to end internal faction fighting and to help ease international sanctions imposed after Hamas took power. So far, the coalition government has failed to achieve either goal.

Top Hamas leader: Palestinians are united in seeking statehood
The Palestinians are united in seeking a state in the West Bank, Gaza and Jerusalem, a senior Hamas leader said in an unusually enthusiastic endorsement of an idea the Islamic militants long opposed.

Moussa Abu Marzouk, a deputy to Hamas leader Khaled Meshal, made the comment in an interview published Saturday in the Hamas-linked newspaper Palestine.

Hamas was founded on a pledge to seek Israel's destruction, but some in the movement have softened their stance as part of coalition talks with the Fatah movement of moderate Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas. The Hamas-Fatah government's platform calls for the establishment of a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem, the lands Israel captured in the 1976 war.

In the coalition talks, Hamas had presented its acquiescence to the idea as a major concession.

However, in his interview, Abu Marzouk implicitely said that a Palestinian state alongside Israel could be an achievement for the Palestinians.

"Now there is one team, one program, one united government ... so there is a big chance to reach the goal we agreed upon at this stage, which is a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza and Jerusalem," he said, refraining from mentioning his organizations stated goal of forming a Palestinian state on all of the lands of the former British mandate of Palestine.