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| By Israel Insider staff June 11, 2007 |
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Sunday Palestinian militant groups took turns tossing their rivals off tall buildings. Monday they killed each other in and around hospitals. The inventiveness of Arab cruelty spiralled higher, as the warring factions crossed additional red lines in their bloodletting.
In the afternoon, Hamas militants tossed a Fatah activist, handcuffed, from the 15th floor of a Gaza City skyscraper in the afternoon. In the evening, Fatah militants responded by defenestrating a Hamas man from the 12th floor of another building.
In the evening, Fatah gunmen kidnapped and killed a Hamas official, after Hamas gunmen shelled a Fatah official's home, leaving him and his brother dead.
Earlier, starting just hours after an Egyptian-brokered cease-fire, nine Palestinians -- six from Fatah and three from Hamas -- were killed Monday in the Gaza Strip in clashes between the two sides.
Monday, the fiercest fighting was focused on Beit Hanoun hospital. On Sunday a physician, for the first time, was shot multiple times through the legs, when handcuffed, and tossed into the hospital courtyard. His crime was being affiliated with Hamas. Monday, it was Fatah's turn. In all, three people were killed and ten were wounded. The dead were identified as a father and two sons from the al-Masri clan, which has ties to the movement.
The Palestinian Doctors' Union called on all militiamen to immediately withdraw from the hospitals, saying the fighting was threatening the lives of hundreds of patients. The union also appealed to the PA leadership to intervene to stop the fighting between Fatah and Hamas. Dozens of families around the hospital fled for their lives.
Earlier Monday, Hamas gunmen killed Fatah intelligence officer Yasser Bakr in Gaza City, causing members of his clan to go out on a revenge shooting spree. Two members of Hamas, barricaded inside Gaza's biggest hospital, Shifa, were killed. Officials reported that gunmen from the Bakr clan began firing mortars and rocket-propelled grenades at the medical facility, drawing Hamas fire from inside the building. During the fighting, top Hamas militant Mazen Ajur was killed along with another member of the Bakr clan.
On Monday evening, senior Fatah man Jamal Abu-Jedian -- a close associate of Mohammed Dahlan -- was killed by Hamas fire near his Gaza home. Abu-Jedian was a senior member of the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade, and a frequent target of Hamas assassination attempts, Haaretz reported. During the battles around his house, Hamas member Mohammed Muhajez was also killed.
In Beit Lahia, Hamas man Bassel al-Caparna was also killed.
A gunbattle outside the parliament building in Gaza City, while the cabinet was meeting. No one was thrown out the windows of the parliament building.
It was evidently not high enough.
Still the meeting was halted when lawmakers decided to leave the building. Palestinian security officials said rival Hamas and Fatah forces were trading fire from neighboring high-rise buildings. No one was thrown out of said building today.
Gunmen had carried out a pre-dawn attack in the Shati refugee camp on the home of Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas.
There were no casualties in the attack. His office wouldn't say whether he was inside, but his family said that his wife, children and grandchildren had been home.
Fatah men also targeted the offices of the Hamas-run Culture Ministry. Culture Minister Bassem Naim was inside the building at the time at the attack.
Shortly after the attack on Haniyeh's home, Fatah and Hamas leaders called for calm to let thousands of high school seniors to take their matriculation exams -- in peace.
"This is shameful for our people," Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas said during a trip to a school in the West Bank. "I call on everyone to stop this immediately, not only because of the examinations, but also for our people to live a normal life."
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