Palestinian police clashed today with 500 supporters of the Islamic radical group Hamas who stoned a Gaza Strip police station in a rally demanding the execution of an alleged collaborator.
A photographer working for AFP said police fired in the air as Hamas supporters and residents of the southern town of Rafah pelted the police station with stones and even home-made hand grenades.
Six people were injured, hospital officials said, including one police officer hurt by a home-made explosive device.
At least one man was arrested after shooting at the security forces, officials said. The clashes lasted several hours.
The demonstrators were calling for the authorities to condemn to death a man accused by Hamas of collaborating in the killing by Israeli forces of six people, including three brothers who were Hamas members, two weeks ago in a helicopter raid in southern Gaza.
The man had reportedly been kidnapped last week by Hamas, who announced he would be put to death.
But members of Palestinian chairman Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement negotiated his surrender yesterday to the Palestinian Authority for trial, Palestinian officials said. The crowd who massed outside Rafah police station included relatives of those killed in the Israeli attack, who wanted to ensure the alleged collaborator was executed.
One Palestinian security source said: "No one can pass sentences except the courts, there should be due legal process."
Suspected Palestinian collaborators have been frequent targets of unidentified Palestinian gunmen, who are rarely caught after slaying their victims.
Collaborators represent a central pillar in Israel's policy of eliminating Palestinian activists it accuses of involvement in anti-Israeli operations, often by using helicopter gunships in attacks on their cars.
On January 13, 2001, two convicted collaborators were executed by firing squad in Gaza City and the West Bank city of Nablus. These were the first such executions since the establishment of the Palestinian Authority in 1994.
AFP