Gaza erupts in fresh violence

reuters
At least 21 Palestinians were killed on Wednesday as President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah faction and Islamist Hamas battled for control of Gaza and Israel launched a round of air strikes against Hamas.

Palestinian officials said the widening hostilities could bring down a two-month-old unity government formed between Hamas and secular Fatah.

Some Palestinians see this leading to all-out civil war and the end of the Palestinian Authority.

Terrified Gaza residents hid indoors as masked gunmen fought running battles street-to-street, killing 16 people.

In one panicked call to a radio station, a woman urged Palestinian leaders to act, pleading: "Do not leave us to die here".

Israel's biggest air strike flattened a building used by Hamas's Executive Force in the southern Gaza town of Rafah, but the army said the attack was not connected to internal clashes that have killed at least 40 people since Friday.

A later air strike in the northern Gaza Strip killed another Hamas militant and wounded two other Palestinians, local residents said.
Rocket attacks

While Gaza battles raged, militants have fired rockets at southern Israel, causing injuries but no deaths, in an apparent attempt to draw Israel into the fighting.

Israel said the air strikes, the deadliest since a November truce in Gaza was declared, targeted a Rafah command centre used by Hamas to plan attacks and a rocket crew that had just fired into the Jewish state.

The Executive Force, which has taken a lead in fighting with Fatah, denied the Rafah building was used to plan rocket attacks and said the air strikes proved Israel was taking sides.

Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said Israel may step up military strikes in the Gaza Strip in response to a surge of Palestinian cross-border rocket salvoes.

"Until now, we have demonstrated restraint, but this situation is not a tolerable situation," Ms Livni told reporters after security consultations with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Defence Minister Amir Peretz.

Israel faces a delicate balancing act. It is under heavy domestic pressure to stop the rockets and also wants Fatah to deal a blow to Hamas; it agreed to let 450 Fatah troops into Gaza from Egypt on Tuesday.

But overt Israeli assistance for Fatah could backfire if Hamas is able to paint Mr Abbas as an ally of the Jewish state, which many Palestinians see as their real enemy.

"We will not intervene in the war itself but if Mr Abbas will request specific help, we will supply (it)," Israeli Vice Premier Shimon Peres told reporters in Estonia.

Hamas and Fatah declared a cease-fire at 1700 GMT, but fierce gunfire and explosions could still be heard across the narrow coastal strip.

Earlier, Hamas gunmen stormed the home of Mr Abbas's top security chief, Rashid Abu Shbak, fired mortars at Mr Abbas's compound and set fire to a building where the head of a pro-Fatah security service lives.

Fatah said at least nine of its members were killed in Wednesday's fighting.

- Reuters