Gunmen Shoot Up TV Office; Hamas Man Killed in Blast (Gaza Civil War Watch)
Haaretz ^ | 06/05/06 | Avi Issacharoff and Gideon Alon
Dozens of Hamas gunmen stormed an office of Palestine TV in the Gaza Strip town of Khan Yunis on Monday, firing bullets into broadcasting equipment, employees said.
A few hours earlier, a large explosive device detonated outside a house in Jabalya refugee camp in the Gaza Strip on Monday, killing a Hamas man and wounding two of his relatives, one of them an eight-year-old girl, local residents said.
"Dozens of Hamas gunmen and members of a back-up force of the Interior Minister ... are setting equipment on fire," said Mohammad ad-Dahoudi, director of Palestine Television, which is under the control of President Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah.
The gunmen shouted accusations against the network, alleging its reports favoured the rival Fatah movement. There were no reports of any injuries during the incident.
snip.
It was the first such armed assault on the official television network in the Palestinian territories since Hamas, an Islamic militant group, formed a government in March after defeating Fatah in a January election.
The explosion in Jabalya was the latest in a series of violent incidents, most of them linked to tensions between Hamas and Fatah. It came hours before the deadline was due to expire on a Fatah ultimatum to Hamas over a plan for a Palestinian state that implicitly recognizes Israel.
The blast also came hours after gun battles raged in the Gaza Strip late Sunday night between gunmen of the rival Fatah and Hamas groups, leaving at least five Palestinians dead. |
