Agence France-Presse,
The death toll from factional fighting in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday rose to 19 in spite of the latest ceasefire aimed at hauling the Palestinians back from the edge of a new political crisis.
Two Fatah activists and three Hamas militants died in separate shooting incidents in the lawless coastal strip, hours after president Mahmud Abbas and Hamas premier Ismail Haniya agreed on the fourth ceasefire in as many days, amid fears of a full-scale civil war.
Overnight Wednesday, unknown gunmen opened fire on Haniya's home in Gaza, his office said. His bodyguards returned fire and the gunmen ran off. Nobody was injured in the attack.
Seven security force members loyal to Abbas's Fatah were earlier wounded by mortar fire that Palestinian officials said came from Hamas fighters, casting doubt on the survival of the Hamas-Fatah two-month-old coalition government.
Three previous ceasefires agreed upon by the rivals since fighting flared on Sunday collapsed within hours of their taking effect.
In a move set to further spiral the violence that has killed more than 40 people in four days, Israel carried out two air raids in Gaza, killing four people, medics and witnesses said.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert ordered a “severe response” to the continuing rocket fire from Gaza, which has seen 26 projectiles land inside the Jewish state since Sunday, wounding four civilians.
The Palestinian factional bloodshed has turned Gaza City into a ghost town, with stores shuttered, schools closed and civilians cowering indoors, avoiding walking in front of windows for fear of being hit by a stray bullet.
“Today we live in fear,” said Um Mohammed, a mother of six. “Even during the Israeli occupation the situation wasn't this terrible.”
As international calls for a halt to the violence mounted, Abbas and Hamas's exiled political supremo Khaled Meshaal agreed to work to halt the bloodshed which is threatening to collapse the unity cabinet and peace efforts.
Abbas was due to travel to Gaza on Thursday and deputy prime minister Azzam al-Ahmad warned that he could declare a state of emergency in the territory, which has been plunged into economic chaos by an Israeli and Western aid boycott imposed since Hamas took office last year.
Early on Wednesday, five Fatah men were killed in a Hamas attack on the Gaza home of the pro-Fatah Palestinian security supremo, Rashid Abu Shbak, who escaped unscathed.
Another Fatah loyalist was killed in clashes nearby and another eight people, including a civilian, died when Hamas fighters attacked a Fatah vehicle.
Forty-two people, the majority of them Fatah loyalists, have been killed since Sunday. The toll has included two civilians, with more than 100 people wounded.
In December and January, about 100 Palestinians died in factional fighting in Gaza, and the unity cabinet which took office on March 17 was supposed to put an end to the bloodshed.
But tensions between the two rivals continued to simmer, stoked by disagreements last week over a US security plan for the region, and boiled over when a Hamas loyalist was killed by a Fatah man on Sunday.
The bloodshed also threatens to torpedo any efforts to revive Middle East peacemaking after Arab states adopted a revived peace plan offering normal ties with Israel if it withdraws from land occupied in war in 1967.
UN chief Ban Ki-moon repeated his call for an immediate end to the violence, which includes “unacceptable attacks on Palestinian Authority installations, institutions and personnel and endangers civilians throughout Gaza.”
His statement described as “equally unacceptable” the rocket firing into Israel.
In Geneva, the International Committee of the Red Cross called “on all parties to exercise restraint and to ensure that civilians not taking a direct part in the fighting are spared.”
Western allies in the Arab world also voiced deep concern, with Jordanian King Abdullah II warning that the fighting will rebound “on the future of Palestine.”
In Riyadh, leaders of the six pro-Western Gulf states condemned the “deplorable violence”, while the German presidency of the European Union said it was “deeply concerned”.
