Gaza truce shaken by attack on PM's office

GAZA, June 11 (Reuters) Gunmen fired on the offices of Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas today, disrupting a cabinet meeting, just hours after the Islamist group and Fatah faction agreed to an Egyptian-brokered truce.

No one was hurt in the attack, which an aide to Haniyeh blamed on Fatah, Hamas's partner in a unity government. But two Palestinians were killed in separate shootings, including a gunbattle in a hospital, medical officials said.

Haniyeh was not harmed but the session was suspended because of the gunfire from a nearby rooftop. President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah faction denied its fighters were involved. Only one Fatah minister attended the meeting.

Sporadic shooting erupted elsewhere following the ceasefire, the latest of a series of truces that have failed to end internal strife in which some 620 Palestinians are estimated to have been killed since Hamas beat Fatah in a 2006 election.

The heavy fighting in Gaza, in which six people have been killed and dozens wounded since Saturday, cast more doubt on the future of the unity coalition formed three months ago.

In a shooting that Fatah blamed on Hamas, a bodyguard of a Fatah-affiliated intelligence officer was killed.

Relatives of the dead man and Fatah fighters then stormed a hospital guarded by Hamas's Executive Force in the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun. A member of the Hamas force was killed and 19 people were wounded in fighting inside and outside the building, hospital officials said.

Earlier, the office of the Palestinian sports minister - a Hamas member and a leading associate of Haniyeh - came under fire. The minister was not hurt.

Fatah denied it carried out the attack, the first on a member of the unit government since Haniyeh brought in Fatah members in March to try to lower tensions and ease international sanctions imposed after Hamas was voted into power last year.

DOUBTS ''The ceasefire is limping on crutches and is in danger of collapsing if violations on both sides do not stop,'' an official involved in the truce negotiations told Reuters.

Gunmen also stormed a mosque in Gaza City, damaging a library, Hamas said. The incident touched off a gunbattle outside the house of worship. Fatah denied any involvement.

A key motive behind the latest truce was to permit 70,000 high school students in Gaza and the occupied West Bank to take their matriculation exams peacefully.

The tests began on schedule in Gaza, but most pupils took circuitous routes to their schools in a bid to avoid the gunmen as the sounds of shooting punctuated the air, witnesses said.

Musbah Abu al-Kheir, 17, passed several armed checkpoints on his way to school from a refugee camp outside Gaza City.

''Fatah and Hamas have no appreciation for the fact we are having final exams today,'' he said. ''How are we supposed to take exams to the sounds of gunfire and ambulance sirens?'' Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said ahead of a visit to Washington next week and possible talks with Middle East power brokers in Egypt later in the month he was ''prepared to renew talks ... at any time'' with the US-backed Abbas.

Abbas cancelled talks with Olmert last week in a dispute over Israel's withholding of Palestinian tax revenues. A senior aide to Abbas said the president stood ready to meet Olmert any time - once Israel released the money.

REUTERS DS BST2037