Six killed in West Bank as rifts mount
Güncelleme Tarihi:
AFP
Oluşturulma Tarihi: Haziran 01, 2009 00:00
NABLUS, West Bank - Six people were killed in a West Bank shootout yesterday during an arrest operation for a senior Hamas militant, deepening the rift between the rival Palestinian factions.
The Islamist Hamas movement ruling the Gaza Strip warned that the rival Fatah movement loyal to President Mahmoud Abbas had crossed a "red line" by carrying out the operation, which killed two of its members.
Hamas-Fatah ties sharply deteriorated after the Islamists seized control of Gaza in deadly June 2007 clashes and the Palestinian split is one of the main stumbling blocks in reaching a final Middle East peace deal.
The gunfight erupted when police tried to arrest Mohammed al-Samman, the commander of Hamas's armed wing in the northern West Bank who was also on Israel's wanted list, Palestinian police and Hamas said.
Samman barricaded himself in a house in the town of Qalqiliya in the north of the Israeli-occupied territory together with Mohammed Yassin, another Hamas militant and refused to come out, they said.
The ensuing shootout killed both Hamas men, three Palestinian policemen and a civilian. A curfew was imposed on the town near the border with Israel following the incident, police said.
Hamas lashed out over the incident. "This crime is a red line," the Islamists said in a statement. "Hamas puts the complete responsibility of this ugly crime on Abbas and his security forces." Describing Abbas and his forces as agents of arch-enemy Israel, Hamas warned it would respond "with acts," without elaborating. "There is no difference between the occupation who shoots and the people who carry out their missions for them," a spokesman for Hamas said at a press conference in Gaza.
Hamas-Fatah ties sharply deteriorated after the Islamists seized control of Gaza in deadly June 2007 clashes and the Palestinian split is one of the main stumbling blocks in reaching a final Middle East peace deal.
The gunfight erupted when police tried to arrest Mohammed al-Samman, the commander of Hamas's armed wing in the northern West Bank who was also on Israel's wanted list, Palestinian police and Hamas said.
Samman barricaded himself in a house in the town of Qalqiliya in the north of the Israeli-occupied territory together with Mohammed Yassin, another Hamas militant and refused to come out, they said.
The ensuing shootout killed both Hamas men, three Palestinian policemen and a civilian. A curfew was imposed on the town near the border with Israel following the incident, police said.
Hamas lashed out over the incident. "This crime is a red line," the Islamists said in a statement. "Hamas puts the complete responsibility of this ugly crime on Abbas and his security forces." Describing Abbas and his forces as agents of arch-enemy Israel, Hamas warned it would respond "with acts," without elaborating. "There is no difference between the occupation who shoots and the people who carry out their missions for them," a spokesman for Hamas said at a press conference in Gaza.