Middle East:Rival Palestinian factions battled in the Gaza Strip yesterday, raising the weekend death toll to at least three and 40 wounded in the fiercest internal fighting since a ceasefire was declared nearly a month ago.
Hours after Palestinian militants from Gaza infiltrated into Israel at a key border crossing using an armoured vehicle marked "TV", Israeli aircraft bombed a building used by Islamic Jihad, causing two injuries, local residents said.
The Israeli army confirmed the air strike targeted Islamic Jihad, which took part in Saturday's cross-border raid.
The army said a separate air strike targeted a weapons production facility used by a militant offshoot of Fatah, which joined Islamic Jihad in the raid. Local residents said a dairy truck was hit but no one was hurt.
The heaviest fighting between the ruling Hamas Islamist group and President Mahmoud Abbas's secular Fatah faction took place in the southern Gaza town of Rafah, where hundreds of rival gunmen took up positions on street corners and rooftops.
Hamas and Fatah pounded each other's positions with rocket-propelled grenades and machineguns, according to locals, who took shelter indoors as the rivals fought block by block.
Two men from Fatah and one from Hamas were killed, hospital officials said. Hundreds of people, including gunmen, attended funerals for the slain men, but there were no immediate reports of violence.
Of the more than 40 Palestinians wounded in the fighting, at least nine were in critical condition, hospital officials said.
The number of injured overwhelmed the local hospital, forcing officials to send people to neighbouring towns for treatment.
The fighting also spread to Gaza City where a Hamas gunman was wounded by gunfire, hospital officials said. Hamas blamed the shooting on Fatah. Fatah had no immediate comment.
Meanwhile, in a statement, the Palestinian journalists' union criticised militants for placing the "TV" insignia on the vehicle they used on Saturday to approach Gaza's border with Israel and attack an Israeli army post across the frontier. One gunman was killed in the assault.
Militants' use of media markings, the union said, could turn journalists who use armoured vehicles in the Gaza Strip into targets for Israeli attack.
Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert said militants had tried to "take advantage of the special sensitivity that we have in a democratic country, such as ours, to the right of the media to operate freely and independently in security-sensitive areas".
Tensions have remained high in Gaza since an Egyptian-brokered ceasefire took effect in the middle of last month, followed by a surge in Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel and Israeli air strikes on militants.
About 50 Palestinians died in internal fighting last month alone.
Egyptian officials have been holding talks in Cairo with leaders from both factions but no agreement has been reached.
Hamas said the fighting started on Saturday night when Fatah gunmen shot dead a local Hamas commander in Rafah. Fatah said the fighting began when Hamas used rocket-propelled grenades and explosives to destroy the homes of two Fatah militants.
The once-dominant Fatah entered a unity government in March with Hamas, victors in a parliamentary election 18 months ago, in an effort to end internal faction fighting and to help ease international sanctions imposed after Hamas took power.
An estimated 616 Palestinians have been killed in factional fighting since Hamas defeated Fatah in elections in January 2006, a leading Palestinian rights group said in a report last Wednesday.
- (Reuters)