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GAZA - Gunbattles raged between Hamas loyalists and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' forces in the Gaza Strip last night, killing at least three people and wounding a dozen others, medical officials said.
Internal Palestinian fighting -- the worst in a decade -- has escalated since Abbas called at the weekend for early elections in an attempt to break a political deadlock with the Hamas government. Hamas has accused Abbas of launching a "coup".
Two security men from a force loyal to Abbas' Fatah faction were killed in a running street battle with Hamas gunmen in Gaza City, hospital officials said.
Hamas and Fatah traded blame on who started the fight and how the two men were killed. Five children were also wounded.
Witnesses and rival factions said a Hamas policeman was killed in an earlier clash at the entrance and inside the compound of the main Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. Rocket-propelled grenades were fired in that incident.
Clashes also erupted outside a key security agency controlled by Abbas.
While neither the Hamas Islamists nor Fatah have declared the end of a ceasefire agreed on Sunday night, there has been a spate of gunfights and kidnappings of rival activists since then. Most hostages have been swapped.
Abbas told visiting British Prime Minister Tony Blair yesterday he was committed to early elections but left the door open for the formation of a Fatah-Hamas coalition with a "technocrat" cabinet that could satisfy Western countries.
Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, a senior Hamas leader, was expected to make a major speech in Gaza at 6pm (5.00am NZT) to respond to Abbas' election call. Hamas has said it would boycott any polls.
The fighting has renewed fears of civil war in the Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank.
In Damascus, exiled Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal said the election call was illegal and that Hamas would take practical steps to stop early elections taking place using "peaceful, popular pressure -- not with violence", the BBC reported.
Hamas, which advocates Israel's destruction, has struggled to govern since taking office in March under the weight of Western sanctions imposed because of its refusal to recognise the Jewish state and renounce violence.
Hamas and Fatah tried for months to form a unity government to end a power struggle, but talks foundered.
- REUTERS
