The Palestinians’ rival leaders were both targeted yesterday as increasingly brutal factional fighting pushed the three-month-old unity Government to the brink of collapse.

Mahmoud Abbas, the President and leader of the secular Fatah Party, accused his Islamist rivals Hamas of staging a coup, and threatened to pull out of the coalition. After an emergency meeting of its executive last night, Fatah announced it was suspending participation in the Government until the fighting stops.

The violence engulfing Gaza in recent days appeared to be spreading to the West Bank, edging the conflict towards full-blown civil war. In Gaza Fatah security forces were losing ground to groups of well-armed and organised Hamas gunmen, who seized control of Fatah’s main security compound in northern Gaza and other key security posts.

Gunmen fired a rocketpropelled grenade at the home of Ismail Haniya, the Palestinian Prime Minister, and Mr Abbas’s Gaza City offices were later shelled.

Blockade drains life from Gaza

The movement of goods into Gaza had been intermittent at best since Hamas won Palestinian elections early last year

BACKGROUND

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Ehud Olmert, the Israeli Prime Minister, gave warning of “regional consequences” if Hamas ousted Mr Abbas’s more moderate forces from power. Mr Olmert said that Israel would not be drawn into Palestinian fighting, but he described the deteriorating Gaza situation as “worrisome”.

The European Union also cautioned about an imminent risk of civil war.

With an Egyptian-brokered ceasefire in tatters, Mr Abbas lashed out at Hamas, accusing the Islamist movement of inciting a coup against his leadership. He ordered all his gunmen on to the streets to protect his presidency. “All information points to a trend in which some of the political and military leaders of Hamas are planning a coup against the legitimate institutions, thinking they will be able to control the Gaza Strip by force,” Mr Abbas’s office said in a statement.

Meanwhile, Mr Haniya accused Fatah fighters of collaboration. A Hamas official said that “certain parties, collaborating with parties hostile to our people, have tried to bring down the Government of national unity by force”.

No one was hurt in the two attacks on the leaders, but they represented a dangerous escalation in hostilities that have killed at least 34 Palestinians since Monday.

The Government, hailed as a way to end factional fighting, has been plagued by an enduring power struggle between Fatah and Hamas over who controls the Palestinian security forces. Hamas officials have demanded that they all submit to the authority of Mr Haniya. Mr Abbas has been working to bolster his Presidential Guard, with money and training partially supplied by the United States.

Hamas gunmen staged an all-out assault on Fatah security strongholds yesterday, demanding that forces loyal to Mr Abbas leave their posts. By mid-afternoon, much of Gaza was said to be controlled by Hamas gunmen, with street battles raging in Gaza City near the President’s offices.

Local Hamas commanders have vowed to fight until the Gaza Strip is totally under their control. Fatah commanders blamed their leaders for failing to issue clear orders on how to retaliate. The latest fighting has been particularly brutal, with gunmen conducting execution-style killings and throwing live victims from rooftops.

“As I am talking to you, bullets are flying over our houses. My house is besieged by Hamas,” said Mahar Miqdad, a Fatah spokesman in Gaza. “There is no chance for any unity with Hamas. They are conducting a cleansing of Fatah,” he said. On Monday, Hamas militants killed Jamal Abu al-Jediyan, the most senior Fatah official in northern Gaza. Mr Miqdad said that he had been shot 40 times in a streetside execution. He was buried yesterday.

Sami Abu Zuri, a Hamas spokesman, blamed Fatah militants for the violence, and said that Hamas was simply trying to restore law and order.

There were signs that the violence in Gaza was spreading to the West Bank, a Fatah stronghold. Gunmen kidnapped Fadil Tamimi, a Hamas Deputy Minister of Transport, and raided a Hamas-affiliated television station in Ramallah.

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