Hamas 'close to controlling Gaza strip'

Hamas neared control of the entire Gaza Strip after a day of battles in the region during which rival Fatah forces were dislodged from key positions.

Some fled into Egypt while others surrendered or destroyed their bases instead of turning them over.

Early this morning Fatah abandoned positions in central Gaza and blew them up, with Hamas forces advancing through the crowded, poverty-stricken territory.

A Hamas military victory in Gaza could split Palestinians into a Hamas-controlled Gaza and a Fatah-run West Bank, and push the prospect of statehood even further away.

Israel watched the carnage closely, in case clashes spawned attacks against Israel.

At least 20 people were killed yesterday, most of them militants, pushing the three-day death toll over 60.

Three of the bodies were brought to Gaza City's Shifa hospital after midnight. In a clash early today in the southern town of Rafah, a Hamas militant was killed, hospital officials said.

In the southern town of Khan Younis yesterday, Hamas militants surrounded a security headquarters and warned everyone inside to leave or they would blow it up, witnesses said. The building was then destroyed by a bomb planted in a tunnel underneath it, said Ali Qaisi, a presidential guard spokesman.

An Associated Press reporter saw defeated Fatah fighters streaming out of the building after turning over their weapons to Hamas militants. Hamas took weapons, clothes and vehicles and flew a green Islamic flag over the building, then celebrated by firing in the air and passing out candy.

Frightened children clutching their shoes in their hands raced into a mosque and dived for cover, fleeing from a gunbattle in Khan Younis. Outside the mosque, Hamas gunmen fired from windows of high-rise buildings at a small Fatah march in the street.

Fatah forces later said they had lost control of the town.

"Khan Younis is finished," said Ziad Sarafandi, a senior security official.

Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah and prime minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas issued a joint statement after nightfall, calling on all sides "to halt fighting, and to return to language of dialogue and respect of agreements," according to a statement from Abbas' office. The call was broadcast on Palestinian TV.

Hamas radio denied the two had agreed to a truce, and clashes intensified in the hour after their statement was broadcast.

Hamas and Fatah nominally share power in a coalition government, while Fatah runs most of Gaza's security forces. But no one was listening to the elected leaders' pleas for calm as the focus of power passed to street militias.

Hamas and Fatah have waged a sporadic power struggle since Hamas won parliament elections last year, ending four decades of Fatah dominance of Palestinian affairs. But the battle is now verging on civil war, as Hamas wages a systematic assault on security forces.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he discussed the possible deployment of a multinational force in Gaza with the Security Council yesterday, after the Israeli and Palestinian leaders raised the idea.

The UN Relief and Works Agency, which provides aid to Palestinian refugees, said it would curtail its operations after two of its Palestinian workers were killed by gunfire.

This morning, Hamas charged that Fatah-linked security forces were rounding up Hamas activists in the West Bank. Fatah has threatened to carry the fighting to that territory, where it is dominant.

In another dramatic battle in Gaza City, hundreds of members of the Fatah-allied Bakr clan, which had fought fiercely for two days, surrendered to masked Hamas gunmen and were led, arms raised, to a nearby mosque. Footage broadcast on Hamas' Al Aqsa TV showed some of the Bakr women trying to enter the mosque. Hamas gunmen later drove off with some of the Bakr fighters, witnesses said.

Two women from the clan tried to leave the area to take a sick girl to a hospital and were shot and killed by jittery Hamas gunmen, a clan member claimed.

After nightfall, Hamas militants blew up the house of one of the Bakr clan's leaders, witnesses said.

In Washington, US officials condemned the fighting.

"Violence certainly does not serve the interest of the Palestinian people, and it's not going to bring the peace and prosperity that they deserve," White House spokesman Tony Snow said.

"They are shooting at anyone and everyone who is Fatah," said Youssef Abu Siyam, a security officer in Rafah.

The fighting spilled into the Fatah-dominated West Bank. Hamas and Fatah gunmen exchanged fire in the city of Nablus and a nearby refugee camp after Fatah gunmen tried to storm a pro-Hamas TV production company. Hamas said 12 of its fighters were wounded.

Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah will make an "important decision" later regarding the fighting in Gaza and the future of Fatah's coalition government with the Islamic militant Hamas, officials at his office said.

They declined to elaborate, but there has been speculation that Abbas would pull Fatah out of the governing coalition.