Hamas pushes offensive against rival Fatah in Gaza
Thursday, 14 June 2007
GAZA CITY, June 13 (AFP): Hamas fighters besieged a top Fatah post in Gaza City Wednesday after driving their secular rivals from the north of the territory in battles that left the government teetering and Gaza on the verge of civil war.
A battle for the headquarters of the pro-Fatah intelligence services in western Gaza City raged from early morning after Hamas attacked it with mortars, rocket launchers and heavy machine gunfire, witnesses said.
Fatah fighters were putting up stiff resistance, they added.
Hamas completed its takeover of the north of the Gaza Strip late Tuesday, after a vicious battle around a Fatah base in the town of Jabaliya that fell to the Islamists late in the night, along with several other smaller positions.
The movement's armed wing claimed in a statement that it was controlling "most of the positions" of the pro-Fatah security services in Gaza City and was laying siege to others. No immediate comment was available from Fatah.
More than 50 people, including civilians, have been killed in three days of vicious gunbattles between the bitter rivals, separated by ideology and locked in a steadily escalating struggle for power.
The US-based Human Rights Watch accused both sides of committing war crimes and serious violations of international humanitarian law during their battles, which have turned hospitals into battlegrounds amid ever-rising levels of animosity between the two camps.
The spiralling violence has threatened to topple the Palestinian unity cabinet, drive impoverished Gaza toward full anarchy and torpedo international efforts to revive dormant peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians.
Late Tuesday, Fatah threatend to pull out of the unity cabinet it formed with Hamas three months ago unless the clashes ceased.
"The committee has decided that (Fatah) ministers will no longer participate in the government if the shooting does not stop," said a statement from Fatah's central committee after a meeting of more than two hours in Ramallah.
A battle for the headquarters of the pro-Fatah intelligence services in western Gaza City raged from early morning after Hamas attacked it with mortars, rocket launchers and heavy machine gunfire, witnesses said.
Fatah fighters were putting up stiff resistance, they added.
Hamas completed its takeover of the north of the Gaza Strip late Tuesday, after a vicious battle around a Fatah base in the town of Jabaliya that fell to the Islamists late in the night, along with several other smaller positions.
The movement's armed wing claimed in a statement that it was controlling "most of the positions" of the pro-Fatah security services in Gaza City and was laying siege to others. No immediate comment was available from Fatah.
More than 50 people, including civilians, have been killed in three days of vicious gunbattles between the bitter rivals, separated by ideology and locked in a steadily escalating struggle for power.
The US-based Human Rights Watch accused both sides of committing war crimes and serious violations of international humanitarian law during their battles, which have turned hospitals into battlegrounds amid ever-rising levels of animosity between the two camps.
The spiralling violence has threatened to topple the Palestinian unity cabinet, drive impoverished Gaza toward full anarchy and torpedo international efforts to revive dormant peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians.
Late Tuesday, Fatah threatend to pull out of the unity cabinet it formed with Hamas three months ago unless the clashes ceased.
"The committee has decided that (Fatah) ministers will no longer participate in the government if the shooting does not stop," said a statement from Fatah's central committee after a meeting of more than two hours in Ramallah.