Hamas Pounds Fatah In Fight For Gaza
Hamas fighters launched a fierce offensive on Gaza City on Wednesday, attacking the main security bases and the president's compound with mortars and rockets and sending some of the rival Fatah forces fleeing in disarray as the Islamic group appeared close to taking over the entire Gaza Strip.
With the fighting raging on rooftops and streets in nearly all corners of Gaza, residents huddled in fear in their homes, hoping to keep their families safe from stray bullets and shrapnel.
Fayez Abu Taha, 45, a businessman in the southern town of Rafah, said he was trapped in his apartment building with his family after Hamas fighters took over a nearby rooftop and Fatah responded by taking over the roof of his building.
"I don't know what they are battling for now," he said. "I can see the bullets flying from my windows. Coming and going."
Maha Baraakat and her family have been trapped in their Gaza home since the fighting began. She contends that fighting is not a civil war, reports CBS News correspondent Richard Roth.
"It is a distinctly Hamas-Fatah clash going on; It's Fatah on Hamas. The citizens are staying out of this ... it's basically a fight for power," said Baraakat
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah called the fighting "madness" and pleaded with Hamas' exiled leader for a halt to the violence. Abbas' forces — desperately trying to cling to their besieged bases in Gaza — lashed out at the president, saying he left them with no directions and no support in the fight.
In other developments:
Abbas and Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas issued a joint statement after nightfall, calling on all sides "to halt fighting, and to return to language of dialogue and respect of agreements," according to a statement from Abbas' office. The call was broadcast on Palestinian TV.
The two have made numerous calls for an end to the fighting in the past, to no avail.
Hamas radio denied the two had reached a truce agreement, and clashes increased in intensity in the hour after the statement was broadcast.
No one was listening to the elected leaders as the focus of power passed to street militias. Hamas gunmen neutralized recognized security forces linked to Fatah in frontal assaults on their strong points, ruling the streets and taking control of large parts Gaza in the process.
The rout of the security forces was so bad that 40 Palestinian security officers broke through the border fence in Rafah and fled into Egypt seeking safety, Egyptian police said.
"What I can I say? This is a fall, a collapse," said Col. Nasser Khaldi, a senior police official in Rafah.
In Washington, U.S. officials condemned the fighting. "Violence certainly does not serve the interest of the Palestinian people, and it's not going to bring the peace and prosperity that they deserve," White House spokesman Tony Snow said.
At least 15 people were killed in fighting Wednesday. Three more bodies were brought to Gaza City's Shifa hospital early Thursday, bringing the total in the four-day campaign to over 60. Among those killed Wednesday was a man shot when Hamas gunmen fired at a peaceful protest against the violence, witnesses said.
In one dramatic battle, hundreds of members of the Fatah-allied Bakr clan, which had fought fiercely for two days, surrendered to masked Hamas gunmen and were led, arms raised in the air, to a nearby mosque. Footage broadcast on Hamas' Al Aqsa TV showed some of the Bakr women trying to enter the mosque. Hamas gunmen later drove off with some of the Bakr fighters, witnesses said.
Two women from the clan tried to leave the area to take a sick girl to a hospital and were shot and killed by jittery Hamas gunmen, a clan member said.
After nightfall, Hamas militants blew up the house of one of the Bakr clan's leaders, witnesses said.
Hamas, already in control of much of northern Gaza, seized the southern town of Khan Younis on Wednesday and began a coordinated assault on the town of Rafah, security officials said.
On Wednesday afternoon, they launched attacks on the three main compounds of the Fatah-allied forces in Gaza City — the headquarters of the Preventive Security, the Intelligence Service and the National Forces — in what could usher in the final phase of the battle.
Hamas fighters, firing rockets and mortar shells, took over the rooftops in nearby houses and cut off the roads to prevent reinforcements from arriving. They called on the beleaguered Fatah forces to surrender.
Hamas gunmen in high-rise buildings also fired at Abbas' Gaza office and house and his guard force returned fire. Abbas was in the West Bank at the time of the fighting.
During the battle at the Preventive Security Service base, both sides fired wildly from high-rise rooftops.
Dr. Wael Abdel Jawad, a physician trapped in his apartment, said he heard Fatah fighters shouting at colleagues on an adjacent roof to send them more ammunition. "All of us are terrified here. Shooting came through the windows of our apartment, children are screaming. We are hearing from a nearby mosque the call by Hamas to surrender," he said.
"Those fighters on rooftops are like Don Quixote, tilting at windmills. They don't know where to shoot," he said.
Earlier Wednesday, Hamas militants surrounded a security headquarters in Khan Younis and called on everyone inside to leave or they would blow it up, witnesses said. The building was then destroyed by a bomb planted in a tunnel underneath it, said Ali Qaisi, a presidential guard spokesman.
An Associated Press reporter saw defeated Fatah fighters leaving the building after turning over their weapons to Hamas militants. Hamas took weapons, clothes and vehicles and flew a green Islamic flag over the building, then celebrated with the people, firing in the air and passing out candy.
Security forces later said they lost control of the town.
"Khan Younis is finished, but we are still holding on in Rafah," said Ziad Sarafandi, a senior security official. Soon after, Hamas militants blew up a second security building near Rafah after a long gun battle and other battles raged in the town, said Khaldi, the senior police official.
"They are shooting at anyone and everyone who is Fatah," said Youssef Abu Siyam, a Preventive Security officer in Rafah.
Early Thursday, Fatah officials said their forces withdrew from some bases in central Gaza and destroyed them, rather than allow them to fall into Hamas hands.
Hamas and Fatah have waged a sporadic power struggle since Hamas won parliament elections last year, ending four decades of Fatah rule. But the battles have worsened in recent days as Hamas began a systematic assault on security forces to take over Gaza.
The fighting spilled into the Fatah-dominated West Bank. Hamas and Fatah gunmen exchanged fire in the city of Nablus and a nearby refugee camp after Fatah gunmen tried to storm a pro-Hamas TV production company. Hamas said 12 people of its fighters were wounded.
On Wednesday, Abbas spoke by phone with the Damascus-based Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal to try to stop the crisis, said Abbas aide Nimr Hamad.
"This is madness, the madness that is going on in Gaza now," Abbas told reporters.
The U.N. Relief and Works Agency, which provides aid to Palestinian refugees, said it would curtail its operations after two of its Palestinian workers were killed by crossfire. "We are scaling back, we are not pulling back," said the agency's Gaza director, John Ging.
Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri, said the clashes could have been avoided if Abbas had given the Hamas-led Cabinet control over the security forces, which he blamed for a wave of kidnappings, torture and violence in Gaza.