Middle East

Hamas militants fire rockets into Israel

(AP)
Updated: 2007-05-16 14:58

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - Hamas militants fired rockets into Israel Wednesday even as they battled their rivals from Fatah in the streets of the Gaza Strip, confining terrified Palestinian residents to their homes and plunging the coastal territory further into chaos.

Palestinian gunmen march during the funeral of security force officers loyal to the Fatah Movement that were killed during an attack by Hamas militants, in Deir Al Balah , in the central Gaza Strip, Tuesday, May 15, 2007. [AP]

Hamas officials said the organization's men launched eight rockets at Israel on Wednesday, following a barrage of around 20 rockets that seriously wounded an Israeli woman Tuesday. The fire threatened to draw Israel into the Palestinians' internal fighting.

Inside Gaza, Hamas gunmen stormed the home of a top Fatah official early Wednesday, burning his house and executing 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 organization, which Abu Shbak used to head, were sent in to join the fighting.

Abdel Hakim Awad, a Fatah spokesman, angrily accused Hamas' leadership of the attack on Abu Shbak's house.

"All (Hamas) are killers from top to bottom, all are implicated," he said, charging that the Islamist group "wanted to turn Gaza into a new Somalia or Darfur."

Wednesday's rocket salvo at the Israeli town of Sderot, just outside Gaza, continued a barrage that began in earnest Tuesday and wounded 17 Israelis, one seriously - a woman whose house took a direct hit. There were no casualties Wednesday 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 Tuesday - an incident that was initiated by Hamas, and which appeared to be an attempt to draw Israel into the fray. Eight Palestinian policemen loyal to Fatah were killed by Hamas fighters in that attack.