(AFP) – Nov 14, 2007

RAMALLAH, West Bank (AFP) — Hamas officials in the West Bank gathered on Wednesday at the tomb of Yasser Arafat two days after Islamist gunfire killed eight people at a Gaza rally for the late Palestinian leader.

The Islamist delegation placed flowers on the tomb in the courtyard of the Muqataa, the Palestinian Authority headquarters in Ramallah, three years after Arafat died of mysterious causes in a Paris hospital.

Speaking to reporters, Nasseredine al-Shaer, a Hamas official for the West Bank, condemned incidents "that made Palestinian blood flow" at a demonstration by hundreds of thousands of people to remember Arafat in Gaza City on Monday.

Seven people were killed on that day and more than 130 wounded when the Hamas-run police opened fire on demonstrators at the mass rally of Fatah supporters, underscoring the deep divisions between rival Palestinian factions.

An eighth man died in hospital on Wednesday from a bullet wound to the head.

Shaer, a minister in a former Hamas-dominated Palestinian government, called for a "commission of inquiry, Palestinian or Arab, to judge those responsible for what happened in Gaza."

Monday's protest was the largest demonstration by the Fatah party in the territory since it was ousted from the Gaza Strip by the Islamists of Hamas in June after a week of deadly clashes.

Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, the Fatah leader and Arafat's successor, subsequently declared a three-day period of mourning.

Hamas leaders in the West Bank, which is controlled by Fatah, often dissociate themselves from statements made by more radical members of the Islamist movement in the Gaza Strip.

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