Israeli air strike kills seven Palestinians

Middle East: Israeli warplanes struck Hamas targets in Gaza as Hamas and Fatah gunmen traded fire yesterday, the sixth day of…

Middle East:Israeli warplanes struck Hamas targets in Gaza as Hamas and Fatah gunmen traded fire yesterday, the sixth day of factional fighting.

Seven Palestinians were killed, including a Hamas member and two others travelling in a van hit by a missile, in Israeli attacks in retaliation for the firing of Hamas rockets on the town of Sderot, where two Israelis were slightly injured.

Despite the ceasefire and the call by prime minister Ismail Haniyeh for gunmen to return to base, fighters roamed the streets and engaged in sporadic shooting. There were two major clashes near the Islamic University, a Hamas stronghold.

Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas appealed to US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice to press Israel to halt military escalation after its tanks moved into northern Gaza and artillery was deployed along the border.

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A total of 47 Palestinians have died in the fighting and up to 18 have been killed by Israeli air strikes, including a man and his two teenage sons whose car was hit by a missile.

Factional clashes have seriously undermined the power-sharing deal reached at Mecca in mid-February and have driven Gaza to the brink of civil war.

However, warring elements are hesitating to bring down the coalition and plunge the strip into full-scale civil conflict because the vast majority of Palestinians are furious with both sides. Agonised Gazans compare the last six days to the "Naqba", the aftermath for Palestinians of the establishment of Israel in 1948.

In the West Bank city of Nablus, Fatah's al-Aqsa brigades, Hamas's al-Qassam brigades, the Quds brigades of Islamic Jihad and the Abu Ali Mustafa brigades of the Popular Front called for an immediate ceasefire. The confining of the violence to Gaza, so far, gives the coalition a slender lease on life and provides mediators with an opportunity to find a formula to halt the fighting.

Fundamentalist Hamas is a much greater challenge to secular Fatah, the former ruling party, in Gaza than in the West Bank. Consequently, the power struggle between them has got more violent. During the 1990s, the heyday of Fatah's rule, its security services dealt harshly with Hamas, creating a thirst for revenge among targeted individuals and clans.

To this was added outrage over Fatah's refusal to yield power when Hamas won last year's parliamentary election and bitterness over the West's ostracism and boycott of the Hamas government. Deprived of direct external aid and taxes collected by Israel, the government has not been able to pay the salaries of 165,000 employees, driving more than one-third of Palestinians below the poverty line and encouraging unemployed youths to enlist in armed groups.

When the unity government was formed Palestinians expected that the boycott would end and that Hamas fighters would be inducted into the Palestine Authority's security organisations.

Instead, Europe continued financing humanitarian programmes which circumvented the government and the US provided $40 million (€29.6 million) to train and equip the presidential guard. This is a Fatah elite force under Muhammad Dahlan, an arch-enemy of Hamas, who serves as Mr Abbas's security adviser.

The fighting peaked when 500 members of the guard entered Gaza from Egypt with Israel's permission. Until then, better trained, armed and motivated Hamas had shamed Fatah and the Fatah-dominated security forces.

Gazans are incensed with Mr Abbas for going along with Fatah hardliners and the US and Israel with the aim of ousting Hamas from power, instead of honouring the Mecca powersharing accord. They are also infuriated with Hamas for taking up arms.