Palestinian factional strife leaves 14 dead

Fourteen Palestinians died Friday in a resurgence of factional violence that marred the one-year anniversary of Hamas’ victory in parliamentary elections.

The daily death toll was one of the highest in the sporadic street fighting that has sunk the Palestinians deeper into chaos and poverty over the last year and complicated efforts to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Friday’s bloodshed disrupted talks between Hamas and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’ rival Fatah movement on a proposed power-sharing arrangement.

Hamas’ upset win Jan. 25 of last year gave the militant Islamic group control of the government, ending Fatah’s dominance.

Because Hamas is sworn to Israel’s destruction, its takeover prompted the United States, other Western countries and Israel to cut off funding to the Palestinian Authority.

Abbas, who had been elected president in 2005, has been trying for months to cut a deal with Hamas that would install a coalition Cabinet supportive of his efforts to negotiate peace with Israel and end the crippling sanctions. These talks have broken down several times amid the sporadic factional fighting, which has left more than 70 people dead since May.

Friday’s violence, in which at least 34 people were wounded, broke two weeks of relative calm.

Four Hamas gunmen were killed in Gaza City after they and other worshipers leaving a mosque exchanged mortar and grenade fire with Fatah-led Preventive Security Service police at their nearby headquarters.

Most of the violence occurred in this northern Gaza town and its refugee camp.

After a 10-hour siege, dozens of police from the Hamas-led Interior Ministry stormed the home of a senior officer in the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, Fatah’s militia, trying to arrest him for an earlier killing. The officer, Mansour Shaleil, escaped harm, but six people died -- one of his relatives, a Fatah defender, two Hamas policemen and two unarmed bystanders.

During the siege, Fatah militants elsewhere said they had seized 19 Hamas members as hostages and threatened to kill them if Shaleil was hurt. Eleven of the hostages, held in the West Bank city of Nablus, were later freed; the fate of the others was unknown.

Hamas police officials said Shaleil was implicated in a roadside bomb explosion that hit a Hamas police jeep late Thursday, killing two policemen. Five other police officers and five civilians were wounded.

Before dawn Friday, Hamas policemen surrounded the home of another Fatah militiaman suspected of involvement in the bombing and killed him. A police spokesman said the militiaman had fired at the police as they went to arrest him.

Fatah officials called his death an execution.

Also killed Friday was a Hamas activist shot by a rooftop sniper as he rode through Jabaliya in a loudspeaker van summoning people to a rally marking the election anniversary.

Hamas had scheduled the rally for Gaza City but moved it to Jabaliya as a protest against Fatah’s alleged role in the latest violence.

The crowd of 6,000 people, many of them bused from elsewhere, was small for a Hamas gathering in the coastal strip, the movement’s stronghold, and many times fewer than Fatah mobilized for a Gaza City rally. Hamas policemen set up roadblocks and stood sentry on rooftops to protect the gathering as militants waved the movement’s green flags.

The main speaker, lawmaker Mushir Masri, said Hamas would stand firm against its foes: Israel, the United States and “leaders of the coup,” a reference to Abbas and other Fatah leaders who are trying to force Hamas to give up full control of the government.

“Don’t waste your time and effort, because we are staying in our positions, in the government and in the parliament, just as the mountains of Palestine are staying in their place,” shouted Masri.

Despite the Western economic pressures, which have made it impossible for the government to pay full salaries to its 165,000 employees, Hamas remains relatively popular -- about even with Fatah in several opinion polls.

Abbas, reluctant to force a showdown, has delayed the plan he announced last month to call parliamentary and presidential elections ahead of schedule, a move Hamas has said it would resist.

He set a deadline Thursday, promising to fix an election date unless talks with Hamas produced agreement within three weeks on a power-sharing government that would recognize Israel’s right to exist.

But Friday’s violence forced a postponement of the latest scheduled power-sharing talks until at least Sunday, Hamas officials said. Fatah officials said the talks were suspended until further notice.

“How can dialogue go on when there is a bomb underneath the table?” said Fatah spokesman Tawfiq abu Khoussa.

boudreaux@latimes.com

Times staff writer Boudreaux reported from Jerusalem and special correspondent Abu Alouf from Jabaliya.