Hamas Islamists in control of the Gaza Strip today enforced a new ban on unlicensed street rallies.
Hamas members fired in the air to disperse activists of the rival Fatah movement and confiscated cameras recording the scene. Hamas's Executive Force said organisers had failed to apply for a permit to hold a rally, in accordance with new regulations issued late on Sunday.
Hamas security men also entered the office of the Arab satellite channel Al-Arabiya and seized a video camera and a tape after journalists working for the station refused to hand over a recording of the events at the square.
Hamas took over the Gaza Strip in June after a brief civil war with Fatah, the long-dominant faction of President Mahmoud Abbas. A Fatah official called the ban an "illegal decision by an illegal and illegitimate force".
A British parliamentary committee report has said that refusal to speak to the Islamist group Hamas is counterproductive.
Pursuing a "West Bank first policy" - where Britain deals with the West Bank, which is run by the more secular Fatah group, and isolates the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip - would further jeopardise peace, the House of Commons' Foreign Affairs Committee said in a report on the Middle East.
"Given the failure of the boycott to deliver results, we recommend the government should urgently consider ways of engaging politically with moderate elements within Hamas," the all-party group said.
It said the former prime minister, Tony Blair, should engage with Hamas to help reconciliation in his new role as envoy for the Quartet of Middle East mediators - the United States, the European Union, the United States and Russia.