Agence France-Presse,
Raging street battles between warring Palestinian factions killed 28 people on Tuesday, driving the territory closer to all-out civil war and threatening to topple the unity government.
Alarm that the Palestinian unity government would fall sparked international calls for restraint in the latest bout of clashes between Islamist Hamas and the secular Fatah of president Mahmud Abbas.
Fatah warned late Tuesday that it would quit the cabinet unless the fighting ceased.
“The committee has decided that (Fatah) ministers will no longer participate in the government if the shooting does not stop,” said a statement from Fatah's central committee after a meeting of more than two hours in Ramallah.
In the northern town of Jabaliya, Hamas fighters stormed the base of the pro-Fatah security services, spraying the legs of fighters inside with bullets and taking control of the facility, witnesses and security sources said.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said he was worried that Gaza might fall completely under Hamas control, warning of “regional consequences” if the radical Islamist group considered a terror group in the West got the upper hand.
He said Israel would not get drawn into the fray and called on the international community to urgently act to change the situation.
Late Tuesday, meanwhile, a fierce gunbattle raged around the Fatah headquarters in Gaza City. Explosions from rocket-propelled grenades and the rattle of automatic gunfire rocked the area, witnesses and security sources said.
Hamas fighters also laid siege to a Fatah base in Maghazi in central Gaza, and a battle between fighters from the two factions raged in the southern town of Khan Yunis, witnesses said.
Medics were overwhelmed trying to identify all the incoming bodies and warned that numerous civilians were among the dead.
One civilian bled to death in the street because ambulances could not get to him, witnesses said.
Tuesday's deaths brought to 50 the number of people killed in the latest round of fighting, which broke out last week after three weeks of calm.
Hospital sources said more than 150 others were wounded Tuesday in the clashes, which turned hospitals into battlegrounds and drove terrified civilians indoors.
“Since early morning we have heard explosions and shooting. We can't go and buy any food, we can't stand in front of the windows, all our children are in one bedroom. The situation is very bad,” said Adnan, a doctor in Gaza City.
Earlier mortar shells slammed into Hamas prime minister Ismail Haniya's home and the seafront compound of Fatah president Mahmud Abbas.
The fragile Hamas-Fatah coalition took office less than three months ago in a bid to halt the feuding that has killed more than 200 people since December.
Abbas's office called earlier Tuesday for an immediate ceasefire and accused leaders in Hamas of plotting a coup and leading Gaza toward civil war.
“All the information and all the facts point to a faction, to which political and military leaders of Hamas belong, who are plotting a coup against Palestinian legitimacy,” the presidency said.
It said the Hamas leaders in question were “pushing the homeland towards the throes of a dreadful civil war” and issued a plea for an immediate ceasefire.
Fatah's central committee slammed Hamas for “looking to annihilate the Palestinian Authority and create a republic of hate and death” in Gaza.
Haniya's office weighed in with a statement charging that “parties linked to enemies tried to bring down the national unity government militarily.”
In New York, a spokeswoman for UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said in a statement that he was “deeply concerned” over the violence which was threatening “the future of the Palestinian government and Authority.”
Ban “calls for the immediate cessation of all intra-Palestinian violence,” the statement added.
Defying the latest Egyptian-brokered ceasefire, Gaza plunged into renewed violence on Thursday, just weeks after a bout of strife left 54 people dead.
The International Committee of the Red Cross and non-governmental organisation Physicians for Human Rights Israel condemned killing at hospitals after battles reported around medical facilities in Gaza City and to the north.
For the first time since the latest violence began, troubles spread to the occupied West Bank where Hamas official and Palestinian under secretary for transport Saidi Tamimi was snatched by gunmen who stormed into his department.
The clashes, coupled with renewed Israeli air strikes against Gaza and a surge in Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel, has cast a deep shadow over international efforts to jumpstart the dormant Middle East peace process.
