10 Palestinians killed in clashes with Israel, internal fighting

Thursday, January 4th 2007, 2:24 pm

By: News On 6

RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) _ Israeli undercover troops burst into a West Bank vegetable market Thursday, seizing four fugitives and exchanging heavy fire with Palestinians in the first major raid since the Israeli and Palestinian leaders agreed to try to ease tensions.

Factional fighting among Palestinian groups also surged, leaving at least six dead and prompting a meeting early Friday between rival leaders _ President Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah and Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas. Haniyeh said the two sides agreed to pull back their forces.

The agreement came hours after six Palestinians, including a senior security officer, were killed and more than a dozen wounded in fighting in Gaza between gunmen loyal to Hamas and those allied with Fatah.

In the Ramallah raid, four Palestinians, all civilians, were killed and 20 wounded. Abbas said in a harshly worded statement that Israel's peace promises rang hollow in light of the raid and demanded $5 million in compensation for the damage to shops and cars in Ramallah.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who met with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak just after the Ramallah raid, apologized for any civilian casualties, but said the operation was intended to protect Israel from terrorist attacks.

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

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 in Ramallah. ``Israel's security cannot be achieved through military force but by serious endeavors toward peace,'' he said.

In Washington, a senior European Union diplomat said Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will travel to the Middle East this month to try to promote peacemaking.

``We will try to see how we can give a push to the peace process,'' said Javier Solana, who met with Rice on Thursday.

The Israeli raid, which turned downtown Ramallah into a battlefield with dozens of cars smashed and vegetable carts overturned, further undercut Abbas at a time when he is locked in an increasingly violent power struggle with the Islamic militant Hamas.

Abbas said Israel's assurances that it is striving for peace and security cannot be believed. ``The continued aggression will only lead to the destruction of all efforts aimed at realizing peace,'' his statement said.

In the northern Gaza Strip, a senior Palestinian security officer allied with Fatah was killed when Hamas militants laid siege to his house, engaging in a protracted gunbattle with his guards and then attacking it with grenades and a dozen rockets, Palestinian officials and witnesses said.

The officer, Col. Mohammed Ghayeb, was the chief of the Preventive Security Service in northern Gaza, and his death was expected to trigger revenge attacks.

Moments before his death, Ghayeb was on the telephone to Palestine TV appealing for help as his house in Beit Lahiya came under attack. ``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 and killed four of Ghayeb's guards and a Hamas gunman. About three dozen people, including eight children, were wounded.

Hours later, Abbas of Fatah and Haniyeh of Hamas met in Gaza and agreed to work to defuse the tensions and recall their gunmen, Haniyeh told reporters. ``We are going to end all armed displays in the streets,'' he said. Abbas had no comment.

It wasn't immediately clear if the truce, the latest of several, would hold.

During the standoff outside Ghayeb's home, dozens of women rushed into the streets in protest, chanting ``Spare the bullets, shame, shame.''

One resident, Amina Abu Saher, told Al Quds radio that it was difficult for her to see Palestinians battle each other and she and the other women were determined to stop the internal fighting.

The factional fighting is a result of the political deadlock between Hamas, which controls the Cabinet, and Abbas, who was elected separately and wields considerable power. Talks on power-sharing between Hamas and Fatah have failed, and truce attempts have repeatedly collapsed.

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.

The Israeli army raid in Ramallah took the Palestinians by surprise.

It began when troops tried to arrest fugitives from the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, a violent Fatah offshoot, in the vegetable market. A gunbattle erupted, and Israeli forces sent reinforcements, including armored personnel carriers, bulldozers, jeeps and an attack helicopter.

For about two hours, a heavy battle raged, sending residents scrambling for cover. Bursts of gunfire, loud booms and ambulance sirens could be heard across Ramallah. At one point, a helicopter fired large-caliber bullets.

The apparent target of the raid, Rabih Hamed, was seriously injured. A photographer for the local news agency Maan was critically wounded by a gunshot to the head.

Meanwhile, Israeli TV and Channel 2 television reported that Olmert had decided to remove his defense minister, Amir Peretz, citing sources in the prime minister's office. Olmert's office, however, denied the reports.

Peretz, who has a limited security background has come under fire, along with Olmert, because of the inconclusive results of last summer's war with Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon.