Gazans seek refuge from fierce Palestinian clashes

GAZA, Jan 28 (Reuters) Palestinian civilians sought refuge across Gaza today from a third day of fierce clashes which have killed 22 people and brought the coastal strip closer to civil war than any time since Hamas came to power last year.

The sounds of exploding grenades and automatic weapons fire echoed in Gaza City as gunbattles raged, witnesses said, and a bomb blast damaged the Gaza home of a bodyguard of senior Fatah figure Mohammed Dahlan.

The clashes are the fiercest among Palestinians since the Islamist Hamas group won elections last January, unseating President Mahmoud Abbas's once dominant Fatah.

The violence, and a wave of abductions, have derailed troubled coalition talks between the two factions and brought much of Gaza to a standstill.

Residents said some families were evacuating homes near the worst of the fighting. Others were keeping children inside and staying away from windows, fearing sniper fire.

Schools across the narrow, densely populated territory, home to 1.5 million Palestinians, were closed today and only a few shops were open for people buying emergency supplies.

''We appeal to all our people, you have to preserve national unity. The language of dialogue and reason must prevail,'' Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas said at the start of an emergency cabinet meeting.

Haniyeh urged Abbas to pull Fatah gunmen off the streets.

But Fatah spokesman Tawfiq Abu Khoussa said the Hamas-led executive forces were ''the major element in tensions and in the continuation of sabotage and killing.'' HAMAS SEES ''COUP'' At least 52 Palestinians have been killed in the bloodshed that erupted after Abbas, a moderate, called last month for early presidential and parliamentary elections after inconclusive talks with Hamas on a unity government.

Hamas parliamentarians said today Abbas' calls for early elections ''amount to a coup against the results of democracy.'' ''National dialogue cannot continue with leaders of the coup or those who support them ...'' they said in a statement.

The armed wing of Hamas, Izz el-Deen al-Qassam Brigades, urged security forces loyal to Fatah to reject orders to fight, saying they were being used to implement a US agenda.

''We will not stand handcuffed in the face of the crimes committed by the tools of America in Palestine,'' they said.

Hamas has struggled to govern since taking office in March under the weight of US-backed sanctions imposed over its refusal to recognise Israel, renounce violence and abide by interim peace deals with the Jewish state.

There were no casualties reported today in either the bomb blast or the fighting. Hospital officials said a Hamas gunman died of wounds sustained yesterday when explosives he was handling detonated.

In the latest skirmishes, Hamas gunmen and members of the Fatah-dominated Preventive Security Service clashed outside its main headquarters in Gaza, witnesses said.

Snipers took up positions on rooftops as Hamas and Fatah gunmen exchanged fire below. There were also gunbattles outside the headquarters of the Hamas-led police, witnesses said.

In the West Bank city of Nablus at least five Hamas supporters, including a city councillor, were abducted by the the Fatah-linked Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades. Eight Fatah and nine Hamas supporters were still held in Gaza.

REUTERS SP KP2030