Gaza Blast Stokes Hamas-Fatah Tensions

1 hour, 29 minutes ago

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - An apparent attempt to assassinate Gaza's intelligence chief with a bomb planted at his headquarters Saturday heightened tensions between President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah faction and the Islamic militant group Hamas.

Hours after the explosion, Israeli warplanes fired missiles at a car in Gaza City and killed Mohammed Dadouh, top military commander of the small militant group Islamic Jihad, Palestinian officials said. Three others traveling in a car behind Dadouh's - a mother, her 5-year-old son and the child's grandmother - also were killed.

The army said Dadouh was responsible for firing rockets at Israeli towns. Islamic Jihad vowed to avenge his killing.

Abbas' security forces hinted that Hamas, which controls the Palestinian government, was behind the bomb that seriously wounded Tareq Abu Rajab, the Palestinian intelligence chief and a key ally of the moderate Abbas.

It was the latest incident to strain relations between the rival Palestinian factions in Gaza. Hamas ordered its newly formed 3,000-strong militia to take to the streets this week in blatant disregard for opposition by Abbas, who has official control of the Palestinian security forces.

The new Hamas militia and Fatah-run security forces have been in a tense standoff the past few days, evidenced by street gunfights that some analysts say may be the beginning of a broader civil war.

Abu Rajab's deputy, Tawfiq Tirawi, was quick to point out at a news conference in the West Bank city of Ramallah that Hamas had been behind the previous attempt to kill his boss, a senior official in Fatah.

Asked whether Hamas also was responsible for Saturday's attack, Tirawi said: "Everything is possible. I don't rule anything out for now."

He said the intelligence services had the names of Hamas members responsible for the previous assassination attempt on Abu Rajab.

"I am not going to pour fuel on the fire, but at the same time I warn that playing with fire will burn the hands of those who are doing it," he said.

Some Fatah members called on Abbas to dissolve the Hamas government and call an early election. Abbas called the blast "unfortunate" and said it posed a "grave danger" to the Palestinian Authority.

He also promised to open a dialogue with Hamas leaders within five days to end violence.

"There is a crisis. We have to look for a solution," he told reporters at a news conference on the fringe of the World Economic Forum in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheik.

A group calling itself the Fatah Protection Unit also demanded that Hamas disband its militia within three days. If the militia is not dismantled, "we are ready to deploy our men and our fighters in the streets ... to protect Fatah men and all of Palestinian society," the statement said.

The homemade bomb that blew up the intelligence headquarters in Gaza City was packed with metal pellets and planted under the elevator's floor, Tirawi said.

Abu Rajab and six aides and bodyguards got into the elevator and were close to the second floor when the blast occurred just before noon. A bodyguard was killed immediately, and Abu Rajab and five others in the elevator were wounded seriously.

The blast hurt three others, including a secretary riding in an adjacent elevator, doctors said.

Abu Rajab underwent surgery at nearby Shifa Hospital in Gaza, where doctors stopped his bleeding and stabilized him before transferring him to the Israeli hospital Ichilov in Tel Aviv.

Abu Rajab, his head bandaged and his neck in a brace, was taken in a heavily guarded Palestinian ambulance to the Israel-Gaza border crossing. Lying on a bloody sheet, he was rolled on a gurney to the waiting Israeli vehicle for immediate treatment.

After his arrival at Ichilov, the hospital said Abu Rajab was in serious condition, under sedation and hooked up to a respirator. Dr. Dror Sofer said Abu Rajab was being operated on for orthopedic injuries.

"I'm optimistic about his chances to live," Sofer was quoted as saying on Web site affiliated with the Israeli daily newspaper Yediot Ahronot.

The other victims were driven to Shifa in intelligence service cars. Agents fired in the air from the windows of the vehicles to clear the way.

Several members of a new Hamas militia fired toward the vehicles, possibly believing they were coming under attack from the rival Fatah-ruled security forces, witnesses said.

Moheeb Alnawati, a political analyst from Gaza, said he expected more incidents like Saturday's.

"We are heading toward a wide confrontation between Fatah and Hamas. It does not have to be civil war, but a broad confrontation that could spread to the West Bank," Alnawati said.

Signs of a broader conflict were evident in the West Bank. In Jenin, a Fatah leader said his group was forming a "popular army" of 2,500 people.

In Ramallah, an intelligence official said Hamas was recruiting and buying weapons, apparently in preparation for an all-out war with Fatah.

Tirawi said there already was civil war.

"What can we say - the violence in the street, the killings, the assassinations. What other name can we give it?" he said.

In Gaza, Hamas tried to calm the situation. Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas canceled all Saturday appointments and formed a committee to investigate the incident, government spokesman Ghazi Hamad said.

"We are asking not to make early judgments, accusations or responses that might lead to tension in the Palestinian streets," Hamad said, in apparent anticipation of Hamas being blamed for the bombing.

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