Hamas attacks key Fatah security positions across Gaza Strip

Hamas attacks key Fatah security positions across Gaza Strip

The Hamas forces captured several positions from Fatah, and threatened to step up the offensive. Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah accused Hamas of staging a coup.

Fatah sources said they believe Hamas is trying to achieve a decisive victory in the Gaza Strip within hours.

Hamas earlier demanded that the Fatah forces abandon their positions, threatening to attack those who remained in their posts.

Palestinian security officials said Hamas seized three small Fatah positions in the southern town of Khan Yunis, but that Fatah remained in control of the local security headquarters. The town's streets were empty as people huddled indoors for shelter.

The officer said Hamas had taken over a building next to the compound in the town.

"Our orders are to defend ourselves if they come, but not to attack," he said.

In the northern Gaza Strip, about 200 Hamas gunmen surrounded a compound, where some 500 Fatah fighters were holed up. Hamas fired mortars and rocket-propelled grenades at the building.

"They are attacking from all sides," said one of the officers, Khaled Awad.

Colonel Nasser Khaldi, a Fatah commander in southern Gaza, confirmed his men were on the defensive.

Khaldi said Abbas must now give orders to fight back.

"There is a weakness of our leaders," he said. "Hamas is just taking over our positions. There are no orders."

The fighting also targeted senior officials from both sides, including the abduction of a deputy cabinet minister from Hamas. His kidnap in Ramallah hinted that the fighting could spill over into the West Bank.

Fatah's military wing, the Al-Aqsa Martyr's Brigades, threatened for its part to expand the fighting to the West Bank by announcing it would kill Hamas officials there unless the organization ceased its attacks.

In Gaza, former Palestinian foreign minister Nabil Shaath of Fatah said Hamas gunmen ransacked his Gaza home Tuesday and shot one of his bodyguards in the leg.

Shaath, speaking to the media by telephone, appeared shaken but said no one in his family had been hurt. He said the attackers stole many items from his home in the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahia.

On Monday night, suspected Hamas gunmen shot dead the most senior Fatah official in northern Gaza outside his home.

Jamal Abud al-Jediyan, who was a top aide to Fatah strongman Mohammed Dahlan, was shot 45 times, medics said.

Hamas seizes control of hospitals

Also Tuesday, Hamas gunmen seized a hospital in Khan Yunis, making it the third medical center to come under Hamas control in two days. Gunmen traded fire at the institution.

Hamas then warned over a mosque loudspeaker that it would attack the headquarters of the Preventive Security Service in Gaza City, which is loyal to Fatah.

"The warning which we have given you to surrender has ended, and we will attack this position of Zionist collaborators," the warning said.

On Monday, the Islamist movement took over Shifa Hospital in Gaza City and another in Beit Hanun, both in the northern Strip. Hamas sources said the organization sent armed men to the hospitals for fear that Fatah gunmen would try to attack Hamas wounded receiving treatment there.

Israel Radio reported that exchanges of fire had resumed at Shifa Hospital on Tuesday.

In Khan Yunis, Hamas controlled the roof of the European Hospital and Fatah security forces took up positions nearby. The two sides traded fire. About 15 children attending a kindergarten in the compound were rushed into the main building, hospital officials said.

Haniyeh's house targeted

The factional violence continued unabated Tuesday with an attack on the home of Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas.

Hamas branded the assault with a rocket-propelled grenade an assassination attempt. Haniyeh and his family were in the house, but unhurt, in the second attack on his home in as many days.

Describing the attack, Haniyeh's son, Abdel Salam, said an RPG hit the side of the house in the Shati refugee camp, damaging it, while the family was inside. No one was hurt, he said.

Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum accused rival Fatah of targeting Palestinian institutions to bring down Hamas. "They crossed all the red lines," he said of Fatah.

Also Tuesday, Hamas said Fatah gunmen kidnapped a member of the Hamas military wing and executed him in the street. The dead man was identified as a cousin of Abdel Aziz Rantisi, a Hamas leader assassinated by Israel in 2004.

Earlier in the day, three women and a child were killed when Hamas militants attacked the home of a senior Fatah security official with mortars and grenades, security officials said.

The gunmen seized Hassan Abu Rabi and killed his 14-year-old son and three women in the house, hospital officials said. Also, Fatah gunmen stormed the house of a Hamas lawmaker and burned it to the ground.

The simmering violence, which exploded into bloody clashes Monday morning, turned hospitals into battle grounds and streets into arenas of public execution.

Both Hamas and Fatah, on Web sites and in text messages to activists, called for the execution of the other side's military and political leaders. Both sides described the fighting, which is turning more brutal with each day, as all-out civil war.

The fighting disrupted final exams for university and high school students. The three universities called off final exams set for Tuesday.

High schools were trying to move test centers to areas out of the range of fire, said Mohammed Abu Shkeir, the deputy minister of education.