Gaza gunmen defy ceasefire

Palestinian gunmen waged a street battle outside the residence of President Mahmoud Abbas today, only hours after rival factions Fatah and Hamas reached a ceasefire in a bid to end days of bloody fighting.

Prime minister Ismail Haniyeh has accused Abbas of inflaming the political crisis by calling for early elections and said his Hamas group would boycott the poll.

Abbas, a Fatah moderate, had called for new elections to resolve the political deadlock that has paralysed the Palestinian government since the hardline Hamas militants won January parliamentary elections.

Hamas’ electoral victory split the Palestinian government, with Abbas seeking peace with Israel and Hamas refusing to recognise the Jewish state’s existence.

The political tensions have repeatedly turned violent and the chaos has spiralled out of control since unknown gunmen killed the three young sons of a Fatah-allied security chief last week.

Foreign minister Mahmoud Zahar’s motorcade came under fire yesterday near the foreign ministry in Gaza City. Zahar was unharmed, but the attack unleashed a ferocious gun battle that raged for more than an hour, the worst fighting since unity government talks broke down late last month.

Medics said a 19-year-old woman was killed in the crossfire.

Zahar said top Fatah leaders were “fully responsible” for the attack on him “and what will happen”.

In a separate attack blamed on Hamas, dozens of gunmen raided a training camp of Abbas’ Presidential Guard near the presidents residence, killing a member of the elite force.

Hamas gunmen also opened fire at a demonstration of tens of thousands of Fatah supporters in northern Gaza, wounding at least one person, and unknown militants fired at least two mortars at Abbas’ office in Gaza City. Hours later, they launched another mortar shell.

Five pro-Fatah security men and a 45-year-old woman were wounded, officials said. Abbas was in the West Bank at the time.

Elsewhere, the bullet-riddled body of a top security officer affiliated with Fatah, Col Adnan Rahmi, was discovered in northern Gaza several hours after he disappeared.

The violence persisted throughout the night, with gunmen waging battles in the northern Gaza town of Jebaliya, near the home of a Fatah strongman in Gaza, and outside the Gaza parliament building.

Hamas militants also clashed with Abbas’ bodyguard unit outside his Gaza home.

Egyptian mediators and small Palestinian factions had worked all day yesterday to broker an agreement between the two sides and a truce was announced at a press conference in Gaza City late last night.

But representatives of Fatah and Hamas did not appear at the press conference, leaving the announcement to Rabbah Muhanna, a senior official in the small Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. “Both sides are serious about the agreement,” Muhanna assured reporters.

Fatah issued a statement calling on its fighters not to fire unless there is was a serious threat on their lives. But the statement also accused Hamas of trying to overthrow Abbas.

“We have intentions about (stopping) the fighting. It is now up to the other side to also stop firing,” Khoussa said.

A Hamas official said last night the two sides had reached an agreement in principle to halt the violence, but had not finalised the deal. But new fighting erupted only hours later.

Despite the violence, the Palestinian president signalled he was determined to push ahead with the plan he announced on Saturday to hold new elections.

But Haniyeh rejected the call for new elections.

“We confirm that the Palestinian government refuses the invitation to early elections because it is unconstitutional and could cause tension among Palestinians,” Haniyeh said.

Abbas’ gamble, after months of indecision, could easily backfire, driving the Palestinians toward all-out civil war or giving Hamas the opportunity to win control of the presidency as well as the parliament and Cabinet that it now controls.

But the political deadlock in the Palestinian Authority, and the increasing poverty and violence it has caused, may have left Abbas with little choice.

Abbas has suggested he is still leaving the door open to a national unity government with Hamas, which he hoped would end the Palestinian Authority’s international isolation, but the growing factional violence has made this increasingly unlikely.