21 Palestinians die in factional fighting

JERUSALEM – Intensifying factional fighting brought the Palestinians’ three-month-old power-sharing government closer to collapse Wednesday as Israeli military aircraft fired on a Hamas operations camp in the Gaza Strip in an effort to end days of rocket attacks on Israeli targets.

Despite calls for a cease-fire, at least 21 Palestinians, all of them apparently belonging to armed groups, died in the worst violence since Hamas and Fatah agreed in February to govern together. That arrangement was designed to end factional fighting but was weakened by the resignation this week of the parties’ compromise candidate for interior minister.

The streets of Gaza remained empty Wednesday except for gunmen from the rival camps, who now appear to be operating with little regard for their respective political leaders. At least 36 Palestinians have died in clashes since Sunday.

Fatah and Hamas officials, along with Egyptian mediators, reiterated calls for an end to what has become a brutal cycle of reprisal killings. One of the Egyptian mediators was shot and wounded in the hand Wednesday after trying to walk Gaza’s streets to test a tentative truce reached the previous evening.

The rocket fire and factional fighting have shattered cease-fire agreements between the armed groups in Gaza and Israel, and between one another. Some officials in Gaza have begun calling on Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, a Fatah leader, to declare a state of emergency that could result in the dissolution of the government.

The rocket attacks, which had declined in frequency since the unity-government agreement was reached, have prompted Israeli reprisals at a time of chaotic Palestinian factional fighting.

Hamas’ military wing, the Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades, has fired at least 40 rockets toward Israel in the past two days – including 12 Wednesday – largely in defiance of Fatah-controlled security forces in Gaza. Hamas, an armed extremist Islamic movement, does not recognize Israel’s right to exist; Fatah does. The two parties have been locked in a periodically violent political stalemate since Hamas defeated Fatah in parliamentary elections in January 2006.