Hamas militants kill Palestinian security commander, 4 dead in Israeli raid in West Bank

Friday, January 5th 2007, 6:13 am

By: News On 6

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) _ The Palestinian president and prime minister, battling for control of the government, agreed Friday to pull back their forces after a senior security commander and six of his bodyguards were killed in one of the bloodiest battles in weeks of internal fighting.

Thursday's violence in Gaza _ along with an Israeli raid in the West Bank that killed four Palestinian civilians _ prompted Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas and President Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah to hold late-night talks, despite the angry accusations the two have traded in recent weeks.

``We are going to end all armed displays in the streets,'' Haniyeh said afterward. Abbas had no comment. Previous truce deals quickly collapsed, though, because of the political deadlock. The Islamic militant Hamas controls the government, but the moderate Abbas wields power as a separately elected president.

The meeting came several hours after Col. Mohammed Ghayeb, head of the Abbas-allied Preventive Security Service in northern Gaza, was killed when Hamas gunmen assaulted his home with homemade rockets and grenades.

Ghayeb was on the phone to Palestine TV just moments before his death and appealed for help. ``They are killers,'' he said of the Hamas gunmen. ``They are targeting the house, children are dying, they are bleeding. For God's sake, send an ambulance, we want an ambulance, somebody move.''

The battle outside the house raged for much of the day, leaving eight dead: Ghayeb, six of his bodyguards, and one Hamas gunman. About three dozen people, including eight children and Ghayeb's wife, were wounded.

On Friday morning, hundreds gathered outside Ghayeb's battered two-story house, its walls blackened and pocked with bullet holes, ahead of a funeral procession for the seven dead Fatah men.

The deaths immediately sparked reprisals. In several places in the West Bank late Thursday, Fatah militants attacked Hamas offices and vehicles. One Hamas activist was wounded, Palestinian security officials said.

Earlier Thursday, Israeli forces entered the West Bank town of Ramallah, the first major army raid since Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Abbas agreed two weeks earlier to try to ease tensions.

The two-hour raid, accompanied by heavy gunfire, turned downtown Ramallah into a battlefield with dozens of cars smashed and vegetable carts overturned. Four Palestinians were killed and 20 wounded in the fighting. The Israelis left after detaining four suspects, all of whom were later released, the army said.

The clash, which came only hours before Olmert held an important meeting with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, embarrassed the Israeli leader, who apologized for any civilian casualties and said the operation was intended to protect Israel from terror attacks.

``Things developed in a way that could not have been predicted in advance. If innocent people were hurt, this was not our intention,'' Olmert said.

According to Israeli security officials, the government did not know ahead of time about the Ramallah raid, which was supposed to be a routine arrest operation and so did not have to be approved by the defense minister. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

Israeli Cabinet minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, a former defense minister, criticized the army. ``I don't think this operation should have been carried out on the day of a visit by the Israeli prime minister to a country in which we have a supreme strategic interest,'' Ben-Eliezer told Israel Radio on Friday morning. ``Our relations with Egypt are more important to us than anything else.''

The summit had been intended to push for new Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts, but was overshadowed by the violence. Standing next to Olmert in the Red Sea resort of Sharm El-Sheik, Mubarak condemned the raid. ``Israel's security cannot be achieved through military force but by serious endeavors toward peace,'' he said.

Abbas said in a harshly worded statement that Israel's peace promises rang hollow considering the raid and demanded $5 million in compensation for the damage to shops and cars in Ramallah.

The apparent target of the raid, Rabia Hamed, a Fatah militant, escaped with serious injuries. A photographer for the local news agency Maan was critically wounded by gunfire.