Middle East:Hamas gunmen attacked bases of Fatah-allied troops with mortars and rocket-propelled grenades early yesterday in part of a four-day campaign by the Islamic militants to weaken the security forces loyal to Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas.
As night fell, efforts were under way to restore a truce. Gunmen pulled back from their positions, to be replaced by police officers. Both sides began to exchange hostages and joint Hamas-Fatah forces patrolled streets to monitor the ceasefire. Previous truces have quickly broken down.
In the West Bank, a strategy session by Fatah leaders ended in a shouting match, with some participants demanding Mr Abbas's party take a tougher stand against Hamas and others pushing to give a mediation effort by Saudi Arabia a chance. In one angry exchange, participants threw an empty cup and a shoe at each other, witnesses said.
Mr Abbas and Hamas's supreme leader in exile, Khaled Mashaal, are to meet in Islam's holy city of Mecca tomorrow for reconciliation talks hosted by Saudi King Abdullah, the highest-profile mediation effort in several weeks of fighting.
The Palestinian ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Jamal Shobaki, said the meeting will be open-ended and will focus on hammering out a platform for a national unity government and distributing cabinet portfolios.
More than 130 Palestinians have been killed in the factional fighting since May. The bloodiest round erupted on Thursday, with 28 people killed and more than 230 wounded in four days. Yesterday, two members of Mr Abbas's Presidential Guard died of wounds sustained in a Hamas attack on their compound on Friday, hospital officials said.
Among the dead in the weekend violence were four children. Also yesterday, gunmen kidnapped the nephew of Fatah strongman Mohammed Dahlan, officials said.
Since Thursday, Hamas gunmen have attacked more than a dozen security installations in what appeared to be a systematic campaign to weaken Mr Abbas's control of Gaza. Late on Saturday night and early yesterday, Hamas fired mortar shells and rocket-propelled grenades at a training camp of the Presidential Guard and Mr Abbas's nearby office compound in Gaza city.
Mr Abbas was not in Gaza during the current round of fighting. Hamas gunmen ransacked a training camp of the Preventive Security Service in northern Gaza on Saturday.
Mr Abbas-allied troops were holding their ground in most areas, repelling the Hamas gunmen. Fatah forces also attacked two Hamas-controlled ministries on Saturday and have repeatedly targeted a Hamas stronghold, Gaza City's Islamic University.
Control of security forces is key to the power struggle between Hamas and Fatah. Hamas controls the cabinet, including the interior ministry, which is supposed to oversee some security forces.
But Hamas lost a struggle for control of the forces with Mr Abbas last year and set up its own militia, the 5,600-strong Executive Force. Mr Abbas said the move was illegal.
On Saturday evening, members of Fatah's Revolutionary Council, one of the movement's decision-making bodies, met at Mr Abbas's headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah to discuss strategy.
"We all agreed that Hamas has been trying for a long time to impose its control on the Gaza Strip, and Fatah needs to stand up to this policy of Hamas," said Amin Makboul, one of the group's members. However, participants disagreed over tactics and whether mediation efforts were useful, he said.
In Cairo, Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak said the stalled Mideast peace process depended on resolving the conflict between rival Palestinian factions as well as the release of the Israeli soldier captured by Hamas-linked militants in June.
- (AP)