GAZA CITY (AFP) — At least five Palestinians were killed and around 40 wounded in armed clashes on Monday between Fatah loyalists and Hamas police in the south of the Islamist-ruled Gaza Strip, medical sources said.
A 12-year-old boy, two other civilians and a member of the Hamas police were killed in exchanges of gunfire during a rally east of the southern Gaza town of Khan Yunis, the sources said.
Hamas police spokesman Islam Shahwan told AFP that the rally marking 43 years since the founding of the secular Fatah movement had turned into a "gunbattle".
"Police tried to disperse a small Fatah demonstration in Khan Yunis that turned into a gunbattle when gunmen opened fire on the police force," he said.
"Three people were killed and several were injured, including several police members," the police spokesman added.
Around 40 people were wounded in the clashes in the densely populated territory where the Islamist movement seized power last June, routing Fatah forces loyal to president Mahmud Abbas.
Following the incident, fresh clashes between the rival forces erupted in Gaza City and the northern town of Beit Hanun, the police spokesman said.
Police arrested dozens of people in the violence, including two journalists who were briefly detained, Shahwan said.
Shortly after the clashes, some 20 masked Hamas men arrested Ibrahim Abu al-Naja, the head of the Fatah high committee in the Gaza Strip, in his home in Gaza City. He was released several hours later, but his moustache was shaved in an apparent attempt to humiliate him, his son said.
A Fatah spokesman in the West Bank town of Ramallah slammed Hamas, saying the killings were proof it did not wish to enter into dialogue.
"We strongly condemn this new crime," Ahmed Abdel Rahman said in a statement.
"It is part of a list of crimes by Hamas and its answer to president Abbas's call to turn a new page and open dialogue with Hamas," he said.
Abbas had earlier said in a speech in Ramallah that he was ready to renew talks with Hamas if it gave up its control of Gaza. Hamas said in reaction that it was ready to engage in talks but rebuffed any pre-conditions.
"I call on those who carried out the putsch... to open a new page," Abbas told Fatah officials gathered in the West Bank town of Ramallah to mark the anniversary of the party's founding.
Cooperation between the Palestinians' two main parties should be based "on a partnership in the heart of the fatherland and around the struggle for its liberations," he said.
"No party should supplant another. The putsch and the military edge should not be a part of our vocabulary. Only dialogue should prevail."
Hundreds of people have been killed in deadly clashes between Hamas and rival factions in the Gaza Strip following Hamas's bloody seizure of power last June.
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