Foreigners told to leave Gaza

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Gaza City - Palestinian security officials advised on Wednesday that European and American nationals should leave Gaza because of a threat of kidnappings, said a top official, two days after the abduction of an AFP photographer who remains missing in the impoverished territory.

A security source: "We've had warnings of kidnapping operations and have asked American and European nationals to leave Gaza."

Another security source said that the request was in part directed at expatriate employees of United Nations Relief and Works Agency (Unrwa), the UN relief agency for Palestinian refugees.

But the agency said it had no plans to pull its foreign nationals out.

"Christar Nordahl, deputy director in Gaza confirmed receiving general advice from Palestinian preventative security about a general kidnap threat," said Johan Eriksson, an Unrwa spokesperson.

"In our view, this doesn't change the situation from what it has been in the past two years... at the moment we are staying put."

AFP photographer Jaime Razuri was snatched by gunmen in front of the agency's offices in Gaza City on Monday, the latest foreigner to be abducted in the increasingly lawless coastal strip.

Two days later, no group had yet claimed responsibility for the abduction or issued any demands.

Fatah militant shot dead in Gaza

Meanwhile a member of a militant group close to Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas's Fatah party was killed on Wednesday and five people were wounded in subsequent clashes between Fatah and Hamas gunmen in northern Gaza, said security sources and medics.

Ala Mohammed Ainaya, a member of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, was shot as he was leaving his house in Jabaliya, said the sources.

The 25-year-old was close to a local Fatah leader in the northern Gaza town, they said.

Later five people were wounded in clashes between forces loyal to Fatah and those of the Hamas-led interior ministry in Jabaliya, they said.

Wednesday's unrest followed clashes and a series of abductions on Monday between militants from the ruling Hamas party and Fatah in the north of the coastal strip.

The two sides called a ceasefire on December 20 to end deadly violence that erupted after Abbas announced plans for early presidential and parliamentary elections to resolve a months-long stand-off with the ruling Islamists.