Eight people, including two foreign journalists, were hurt in Gaza today when thousands of men from the Fatah movement used open-air weekly prayers to protest against the Hamas Islamist takeover of the Palestinian enclave.
Six Palestinian youths were wounded by what appeared to be stun grenades as Fatah supporters threw rocks at the home of a leading Hamas figure in the southern town of Rafah, medics said.
Two French television journalists were slightly hurt in a similar incident outside a police station in Gaza City. It was unclear who set off the small blasts.
Thousands of Fatah men, loyal to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, attended the prayers in the latest sign of a renewed defiance on the part of the long-dominant secular movement following the rout of its forces by Hamas militiamen in the Gaza Strip in June.
Shots were also fired after the prayers in Gaza City and witnesses spoke of several men beaten or arrested by Hamas security men after some from the departing crowd threw rocks at the Interior Ministry. A spokesman for Hamas's Executive Force security wing confirmed several people were arrested.
However, most protesters dispersed without the violence some had feared after clashes at a rally last week. After similar protests last Friday, Hamas security forces fired in the air and arrested a number of people, including journalists.
This week, Hamas fighters deployed in visibly large numbers ahead of the prayers but the Islamist group denied a Fatah claim it detained dozens of Fatah supporters overnight. Yellow Fatah flags fluttered over the gatherings and from rooftops.
A preacher at the Gaza City rally urged worshippers to put aside factional differences and unite against Israel. "Mosques should be independent of armed difference and dispute," cleric Rushdi al-Zayan told the crowd. "We are one people and our enemy is one. We should unite against our enemy."
Fatah says hundreds of its supporters have been detained in Gaza since the Hamas takeover but most have been freed. Hamas says over 400 of its followers have been held in the West Bank.