Explosion in Gaza City as Israeli planes pound Hamas targets
An explosion has been heard in Gaza City as Hamas and Fatah gunmen exchanged automatic weapons fire at a city university and Israeli war planes pummelled Hamas targets for a third straight day, killing five people, in response to the Islamic group’s rocket attacks on southern Israel.
The sound of gunfire and explosions rang out in the Gaza Strip as masked gunmen took up positions at roadblocks and rooftops – defying mediators who worked furiously to get the sides to withdraw and halt their fire.
Against the backdrop of the Palestinian infighting that threatened all-out civil war, Israeli airstrikes added an extra layer of violence and uncertainty.
Still, a senior army official, speaking on condition of anonymity because no official decision has been made, said Israel had no immediate plans for a major ground offensive to halt rocket fire.
The Israeli army said about 90 rockets have hit southern Israel since Wednesday. At least 13 fell on Friday, including one that wounded three Israelis and another that wounded a man in the southern town of Sderot.
Six days of fighting between Hamas and the Fatah movement of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas have claimed 47 lives and all but destroyed a two-month-old power-sharing deal between the two groups. An additional 17 Palestinians have died in the Israeli airstrikes.
Gunshots and rocket-propelled grenades flew outside the Islamic University, a Hamas stronghold, in two bursts of fighting on today.
Hamas fighters in control of the university battled Fatah forces who had taken up positions in the nearby foreign ministry building.
Grenades hit the office of university President Kamelen Shaath, who appealed for an immediate halt to the violence.
“Universities must be outside the circle of violence and I appeal to the president (Abbas) and all the wise people on both sides to try and spare the university the agony of this fight,” he said.
One person was wounded in the fighting at the school.
Elsewhere in the city, a 40-year-old Palestinian fisherman was shot in the head by a sniper’s bullet as he stood in Gaza City’s harbour. It was not clear which side fired the deadly shot.
Street battles were down from their height two days ago, but the latest truce worked out between the sides on Thursday enjoyed no more success than a series of cease-fires on previous nights. That raised the question of who was in charge - and it appeared the political leaders of both Hamas and Fatah had lost control of their gunmen.
“Our retaliation for (Fatah’s) crimes is going to be beyond their imagination,” Abu Obeida, spokesman for Hamas’s military wing, said.
Gen Jamal Kayed, Fatah’s security commander in Gaza, said his group had already begun implementing the cease-fire but said Hamas was not willing to follow suit.
By most accounts, Hamas’s performance in the latest round of internal fighting has been superior to Fatah’s, with greater discipline and more motivated fighters.
Although Israel said it wasn’t taking sides, its airstrikes – four today alone - made it harder for Hamas gunmen to move around, and Hamas used that fact to argue that Fatah and Israel were in cahoots.
Hamas TV today named three Fatah security chiefs who it said were in secret contact with “foreign” security personnel to exchange information on Palestinian militant groups.
“They are deep into treason, and we will deal with them accordingly,” the broadcast said. The TV did not specify which foreigners, but Fatah forces affiliated with Abbas have received advice and training from the US
Earlier in the week, some 500 Fatah security forces trained in Egypt under a US-brokered deal returned to Gaza, passing through the border with Israel’s permission.
While Israel and the US have made no secret of their desire to bolster Fatah at the expense of Hamas, Israeli policymakers also want to avoid uniting Palestinian factions into a common front against Israel.
An Israeli air attack east of Gaza City today killed five Palestinians, at least three of them Hamas militants, and wounded six people, Hamas and local doctors said. The military said the target was a Hamas headquarters building.
Three other strikes followed, including an afternoon hit on a Hamas military building near the central Gazan town of Deir al Balah. No casualties were reported, most likely because Hamas had ordered its people to evacuate possible Israeli targets.
Washington lists Hamas, which has killed more than 250 Israelis in suicide and other attacks, as a terror group. Hamas’ parliamentary election sweep last year provoked punishing sanctions against the Palestinian government that have remained in place despite the formation of a national unity government in March.
International donors are demanding that Hamas renounce violence and recognise Israel’s right to exist as a condition for restoring aid. Hamas’ decision to resume violence in the form of rocket attacks on Israel is likely linked to the unity government’s failure to lift the boycott.
Israeli media reported that between 2,500 to 3,000 of Sderot’s 23,000 residents have fled the rocket-battered city in recent days, some leaving on buses organised by the government, and others taking advantage of a Russian-Israeli tycoon’s offer to stay in hotels in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Be’er Sheva at his expense.
Today Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni showed members of the diplomatic corps in Israel video of a Sderot school damaged by rocket fire.
“For too long the international community took the situation in the south of Israel as acceptable, as part of life in Israel, and it’s not,” she told Tel-Aviv based envoys.
