Gaza gunmen kill pregnant Palestinian woman-medics

GAZA, June 4 (Reuters) Palestinian gunmen shot dead a pregnant Palestinian woman and wounded her husband and his brother, a Hamas militant, in a shooting incident in the southern Gaza Strip today, hospital sources said.

Witnesses said gunmen, whose identity was unclear, shot at local Hamas leader Mohammad al-Ghalban as he was travelling in a car with family members after dark in the town of Khan Younis.

The motive for the shooting was not known, but local Hamas militia blamed rival Fatah gunmen for the attack and subsequently deployed in the streets as tensions rose in the impoverished town in the southern part of the coastal strip.

Ghalban and his brother, who was critically wounded, were being treated at a Gaza hospital, medics said.

The death is the first since a Palestinian security officer was killed and seven were wounded in clashes between rival Fatah and Hamas factions in Gaza last Thursday, underscoring growing tension in the coastal strip.

The clashes have disrupted a tenuous peace that in place since President Mahmoud Abbas, Fatah's leader, and Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh's Hamas-led government began talks last month to try to end violence in Gaza.

Reuters PDS VP0200