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Inter-Palestinian Fighting Kills Two
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Palestinian youth stand near burnt police vehicle in the clashes between security forces and Hamas members. (Reuters)
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GAZA,
July 15, 2005 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – Two
Palestinians were killed and several others wounded in clashes between
the Palestinian security forces and members of the military wing of
the Islamic resistance group Hamas in Gaza Strip Friday, July 15.
"One
civilian was killed and a total of 16 injured, several of them
seriously," a doctor at a Gaza hospital told Agence France Presse
(AFP).
One
of the dead was identified as Ismail al-Amarin, 17. Doctors later
pronounced a 15-year-old boy dead, saying he too had been shot in the
head.
Palestinian
medical sources said six of the wounded were members of the security
forces and the rest were civilians, some of whom were caught in the
crossfire in the densely populated neighborhood of Al-Zeitoun, Reuters
said.
It
was not immediately clear whether the fatal shots were fired by
Palestinian security officers or Hamas members.
During
the in-fighting, Hamas members torched three security force jeeps as
acrid smoke engulfed the air, witnesses told Reuters.
The
fighting was the worst among Palestinians since the mid-1990s when
Palestinian police killed more than a dozen protesters in clashes with
stone-throwers outside a Hamas-stronghold mosque.
Blame
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Palestinians wheel into hospital a victim hurt in the fighting. (Reuters)
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Palestinian
Interior Ministry, on its part, heaped the blame on Hamas for firing
on the Palestinian police.
Denying
any role in fueling the clashes, the resistance group, for its part,
demanded the sacking of Interior Minister, Nasr Yussuf.
"We
are asking for the dismissal of the interior minister because keeping
him in his dangerous job will be very dangerous for Palestinian
unity," Hamas said in a statement faxed to the AFP.
"What
is happening in Gaza is a dangerous crime against our people and was
directly ordered by the interior minister... What is happening is part
of Nasr Yussef's plan to destroy resistance."
Hamas
spokesman, Sami Abu Zuhri told Al-Jazeera the clashes were not
spontaneous but were a deliberate attempt by the Palestinian Authority
to prevent the resistance group from "defending the Palestinian
people against Israel aggression".
He said
Palestinian security forces have clear instructions to use force,
including open fire, to block any attempt to fire missiles against
Israel.
"The
Palestinian Authority should seek to protect the Palestinian people,
not the Israeli settlements," he said.
He,
however, affirmed that the resistance group remained committed to the
truce, stressing "the truce must be respected by the both
sides".
On
Alert
The
clashes erupted Thursday night and resumed Friday after Yussef put
security forces and police on high alert to "prevent by force if
necessary all firing of rockets and mortars" against Israeli
targets.
Palestinian
resistance men fired rockets into southern Israel Thursday, killing an
Israeli woman, and Palestinian police then confronted them in an
effort to prevent further barrages.
Palestinian
resistance groups said the rocket attack was in retaliation of the
killing of a Palestinian man in an Israeli raid in the West Bank
Thursday, part of an Israeli offensive against Islamic Jihad's attack
at a shopping mall in the Israeli city of Netanya, which left five
Israelis killed.
Israeli
Raids
Before
dawn Friday, an Israeli helicopter carried out three raids on northern
Gaza Strip.
The
Israeli army said an Israeli helicopter fired a missile, destroying a
pro-Hamas charity in Gaza and another struck a weapons depot.
Two
other helicopters hit a metal foundry and a storage room in a home in
Gaza, according to witnesses.
The
Israeli army also said Gaza would be "cut into three parts",
effectively blocking main roads to Palestinian travel.
Palestinian
leader Mahmoud Abbas, struggling to preserve the shaky ceasefire with
Israel, managed to convince resistance factions in March to observe a
"period of calm" conditional on Israel ending its
aggressions against them.
Since
then, the calm has been put to the test several times in view of
continued Israeli violations.
Over
the past three months, many Palestinians were killed and wounded by
Israeli gunfire, drawing retaliatory mortar and rocket attacks from
Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters on Jewish settlements in the occupied
territories.
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