Gunmen raid Fatah official's home, killing 6 POSTED: 4:10 a.m. EDT, May 16, 2007 Story Highlights ⢠NEW: Fatah says security chief's home burned and six guards slain ⢠NEW: Nurse inside ambulance caught in crossfire, shot dead ⢠Hamas fires barrage of rockets at an Israeli town after day of factional fighting ⢠Israel says it won't play into Hamas' hands, won't respond on large scale Adjust font size: Decrease fontDecrease font Enlarge fontEnlarge font GAZA CITY (AP) -- Hamas gunmen fatally shot six bodyguards from the rival Fatah movement and fired a barrage of rockets at southern Israel on Wednesday, apparently attempting to draw Israel into the fierce Palestinian infighting as Gaza slid further into chaos. The streets of central Gaza City echoed with the rattle of machine gun fire and were empty except for gunmen in black ski masks. Terrified residents huddled in dark homes after electricity to some downtown neighborhoods was cut off by a downed power line. A nurse traveling in an ambulance was shot in the head and killed after being caught in the crossfire, hospital officials said. Fighting raged close to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' heavily guarded compound, which also was targeted by Hamas mortar fire overnight. Abbas, a moderate from Fatah, was not present. Early Wednesday, Hamas gunmen fired mortars and pipe bombs at the home of Fatah security chief Rashid Abu Shbak, before storming inside and killing six bodyguards, Palestinian security and medical officials said. Abu Shbak and his family were not home at the time of the attack, but the house was guarded by at least a dozen of his bodyguards. Dozens of reinforcements from the Preventive Security organization, which Abu Shbak used to head, were sent in to join the fighting. Abdel Hakim Awad, a Fatah spokesman, angrily accused Hamas' leadership of the attack on Abu Shbak's house. "All (Hamas) are killers from top to bottom, all are implicated," he said, charging that the Islamist group "wanted to turn Gaza into a new Somalia or Darfur." Rockets fired into Israel Hamas officials said the organization's men launched eight rockets at Israel on Wednesday, following a barrage of around 20 rockets a day earlier. That salvo at the Israeli town of Sderot, just outside Gaza, wounded 21 Israelis, one seriously -- a woman whose house took a direct hit, said Yerucham Mendola, spokesman for the Red Star of David, the Israeli equivalent of the Red Cross. There were no casualties Wednesday morning, but school was canceled in Sderot and residents huddled in bomb shelters. Hamas said its rockets were retaliation for Israeli violence, but the barrage also could have been an attempt to draw Israel into the fighting as a way of uniting the Palestinians against a common foe. Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz summoned army commanders for late-night consultations to consider Israel's next move. Israeli security officials said there would be no large-scale military response to the rocket fire so as not to play into Hamas' hands. "Israel is not going to be dragged into the Gaza Strip the way that Hamas wants. We will choose the time, the place to respond and we will protect our citizens," said Israeli government spokeswoman Miri Eisin. Wednesday's violence in Gaza followed a stunning Hamas attack the previous day on a group of Fatah-affiliated policemen at the coastal strip's only cargo crossing. In that attack, Hamas gunmen surrounded a Fatah police jeep and riddled its passengers with bullets at close range, killing eight. An Egyptian mediator said a truce was reached late Tuesday -- the third in as many nights. But like the previous agreements, Tuesday's agreement collapsed within hours. Peace hopes weakened Gaza's turmoil further weakened hopes for a resumption of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, despite a new push by the Arab world to bring the sides to the table. The offer proposes Arab recognition of Israel in exchange for an Israeli withdrawal from all lands it occupied in the 1967 Mideast War. Negotiations, however, are inconceivable if the Palestinians descend into civil war. Still, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and King Abdullah II of Jordan met Tuesday at the king's seaside palace in Aqaba in the highest-level attempt yet to push forward the Arab initiative. This week's fighting was the worst since Hamas and Fatah agreed in February to share power. In all, 30 people have been killed since Sunday, and dozens have been wounded. At the core of the fighting is the unresolved power struggle between Hamas, which won parliament elections last year, and Abbas' Fatah, which dominated Palestinian politics for four decades. After a year in power and squeezed by an international aid boycott, Hamas realized it could not govern alone and brought Fatah into the government. But the two sides never worked out all their differences, particularly over who would control the Palestinian security forces. Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Israel is smart this time, let them have a civil war and kill themselves. The US I am thinking now, should pull out of Iraq, it will send the whole region into civil war, Sunni and shia and Al-Quaeda stirring the pot. I am for sure a repub. but I see this pulling out for us to regroup and at the same time they kill themselves, then when a certain group of murderers wins then we go in and take them out. I love this muslim civil war idea, they will be doing our work for us Ps. I was never for us pulling out of Middle east till i read this article. Do they get 62 virgins for killing there own peeps?? lol Ala snackbar