Rockets hit Israel as infighting rages in Gaza

Hamas officials said the organisation’s men launched eight rockets at Israel today, following a barrage of around 20 rockets that seriously wounded an Israeli woman.

The fire threatened to draw Israel into the Palestinians’ internal fighting in Gaza.

Inside Gaza, Hamas gunmen stormed the home of a top Fatah official, burning his house and killing six bodyguards inside, Palestinians security and medical officials said.

The gunmen fired mortars at the house of Fatah security chief Rashid Abu Shbak before storming it, planting pipe bombs and shooting those inside, the officials said.

Abu Shbak and his family were not home at the time of the attack, but the house was guarded by at least a dozen of his bodyguards.

Dozens of reinforcements from the Preventive Security organisation, which Abu Shbak used to head, were sent in to join the fighting.

Today’s rocket salvo at the Israeli town of Sderot, just outside Gaza, continued a barrage that began in earnest yesterday and wounded 17 Israelis, one seriously – a woman whose house took a direct hit. There were no casualties this morning.

Hamas, which runs the Palestinian government alongside Fatah, claimed responsibility for firing the rockets. Hamas officials said the barrages were retaliation for an Israeli attack at an Israel-Gaza crossing point yesterday - an incident that was initiated by Hamas.

Israeli Defence Minister Amir Peretz summoned army commanders for late-night consultations to consider Israel’s next move. Israeli security officials said there would be no large-scale military response to the rocket fire

In yesterday’s crossing attack, Hamas gunmen riddled a Fatah police vehicle with gunfire at close range, killing eight policemen guarding the Palestinian side of the Karni cargo terminal, the only entry and exit point for Gaza goods.

This morning, the streets of central Gaza City echoed with the rattle of machine gun fire, and were empty except for gunmen in black ski masks. Terrified residents huddled in dark homes after electricity to some neighbourhoods was cut off by a downed power line.

An Egyptian mediator said a truce was reached late yesterday – the third in as many nights. But like the previous agreements, the agreement collapsed within hours.

Gaza’s turmoil further weakened hopes for a resumption of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, despite a new push by the Arab world to bring the sides to the table.

The offer proposes Arab recognition of Israel in exchange for an Israeli withdrawal from all lands it occupied in the 1967 Mideast War.

This week’s fighting was the worst since Hamas and Fatah agreed in February to share power. In all, 23 people have been killed since Sunday, and dozens have been wounded.

At the core of the fighting is the unresolved power struggle between Hamas, which won parliament elections last year, and Abbas’ Fatah, which dominated Palestinian politics for four decades.

After a year in power and squeezed by an international aid boycott, Hamas realised it could not govern alone and brought Fatah into the government.

But the two sides never worked out all their differences, particularly over who would control the Palestinian security forces.