Gunbattles rage in tense Gaza, five dead

GAZA, Dec 19 (Reuters) Gunbattles raged between Hamas loyalists and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's forces in Gaza City today, killing at least three people and reviving fears the strip could slip into civil war.

Hospital officials also said the bodies of two security men loyal to Abbas's Fatah faction had been dumped in a street. Fatah said the men had been abducted hours earlier.

Internal Palestinian fighting, the worst in a decade, has escalated since Abbas called for early elections on Saturday in an attempt to break a political deadlock with the Hamas government.

Hamas has accused Abbas of launching a ''coup''.

Both Hamas and Fatah blamed each other for the sudden surge in street fighting in central Gaza City, where gunmen fought running battles with automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades.

Civilians fled for their safety and some shops closed. In between bouts of fighting, masked gunmen roamed the streets.

''This is madness,'' said taxi driver Adel Mohammad-Ali, 40.

''The streets are divided between Hamas and Fatah gunmen. You never know who is who.'' The clashes have effectively buried a truce agreed on Sunday night.

Two security men from a force loyal to Fatah were among those killed in the street fighting, hospital officials said.

Hamas and Fatah traded blame on who started the fight and how the two men were killed. Five children were also wounded after getting caught in cross-fire.

Witnesses and rival factions said a Hamas policeman was killed in an earlier clash at the entrance and inside the compound of the main Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. Rocket-propelled grenades were also fired in that incident.

Around a dozen people have been wounded in total.

Dozens of police loyal to Abbas but who work in the Hamas-controlled Interior Ministry staged a protest outside their headquarters, firing rifles into the air and saying they would no longer take orders from minister Saeed Seyam. They called Seyam the ''minister of treason''.

Abbas told visiting British Prime Minister Tony Blair on Monday he was committed to early elections but left the door open for the formation of a Fatah-Hamas coalition with a ''technocrat'' cabinet that could satisfy Western countries.

Hamas and Fatah tried for months to form a unity government to end a power struggle, but talks foundered. Hamas beat Fatah in January elections.

PEACEFUL PRESSURE Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, a senior Hamas leader, is expected to make a speech in Gaza at 6 p.m. (1600 GMT) to respond to Abbas's election call. Hamas has said it would boycott any polls.

In Damascus, exiled Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal said the election call was illegal and that Hamas would take practical steps to stop early elections taking place using ''peaceful, popular pressure -- not with violence'', the BBC reported.

Hamas, which advocates Israel's destruction, has struggled to govern since taking office in March under the weight of Western sanctions imposed because of its refusal to recognise the Jewish state and renounce violence.

The West has sought to bolster Abbas, who favours a two-state solution to end conflict with Israel.

While a Gaza truce declared by Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert last month has largely held, Israel has kept up military action in the West Bank.

Israeli commandos shot dead a Fatah militant in the West Bank city of Nablus on Tuesday, witnesses said. An Israeli army spokeswoman said the militant tried to evade arrest.

Israeli forces killed another militant in the West Bank town of Tulkarm, witnesses said. The army had no immediate comment.

REUTERS PDM PM1826