Two more killed in fresh flare-up of Gaza clashes
Afp, Gaza City
Two Palestinians were killed yesterday in a fresh flare-up of violence in the Gaza Strip between supporters of rival factions Hamas and Fatah, medical officials said. Their deaths bring to 17 the number of people killed in deadly clashes between the two factions in the beleaguered coastal strip since the violence erupted late Thursday, according to medical sources. At least 43 people have been injured. Those killed Saturday were identified as Mahmoud Khalil Khatib, 17, who appears to have been an innocent bystander and Mohammad Khattab, 33, an officer in the national security force, medical sources said. The two were among three people injured after automatic gunfire erupted near the headquarters of the Fatah-dominated preventative security force in Gaza City and near the Shifa Hospital just a few blocks away. They died soon after in hospital. Islamist Hamas, which heads the Palestinian government, announced Friday it was suspending talks with Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas's Fatah party on the formation of a national unity government due to the outbreak of violence. The rival factions had on Tuesday begun a new round of negotiations on forming a unity government acceptable to Western donors, just two days after Abbas held talks in Syria with exiled Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal. Tensions had flared after Abbas, the head of the Palestinian Authority, had called on December 16, 2006, for early elections. Hamas, which won a resounding election victory one year ago Friday and has struggled to govern since then in the face of international isolation, denounced the call as a "coup d'etat". Subsequent clashes between Fatah and Hamas supporters killed more than 30 people between mid-December and early January. But the two-week lull that followed revived hopes of a deal to form a unity government that could overcome the political and financial impasse that has paralysed the Palestinian Authority for months. In addition to the deaths since Thursday, nine members of Hamas and five members of Fatah were kidnapped in tit-for-tat abductions in Gaza and the occupied West Bank Friday, and nine Hamas members were kidnapped in the northern village of Kafr Qalil by Fatah, security sources said.
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