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Oil Security force bombed by Israel
May 18, 2007 Edition 1
Gaza City
Israeli F-16 warplanes bombed the headquarters of the Hamas-established Executive Security Force in Gaza City, as sporadic factional clashes between the rival Palestinian Hamas and Fatah persisted yesterday throughout the Strip despite a new truce.
At least 15 people were injured in the air strike on the building in the centre of the city, Hamas sources said, adding that four of them were Executive Force members. The others were bystanders.
At least three Palestinians were also killed in the ongoing clashes yesterday, while two others died of wounds, raising the total deaths in five days of infighting to at least 50.
An Israeli military spokeswoman confirmed the air strike, calling the target a Hamas military command and saying it was chosen because Hamas's military wing had claimed responsibility for firing many of more than 70 Gaza-made Qassam rockets launched at Israel since Tuesday.
The ruling Hamas movement stablished the Executive Force soon after it took office one year ago after winning parliamentary elections, and it consists mostly of members of its military wing.
Radical
But while Hamas's military wing is behind the rocket fire, the radical Islamic movement's Executive Force plays a central role in the fighting against Fatah-dominated security forces answering to President Mahmoud Abbas.
Israel has announced an end to its policy of "restraint" of the past six months since the declaration of a ceasefire in Gaza, and said it would renew its air strikes on militant commanders who order the rocket fire and against their "infrastructure". But it has also said that it will not be "dragged" into the internal Palestinian power struggle.
Nevertheless, since Hamas won parliamentary elections in January 2006, Israel has adopted an open political policy of strengthening Abbas at the expense of Hamas.
Hamas has slammed Israel for giving the green light to about 450 Fatah gunmen to return through the southern Gaza Strip border crossing of Rafah as they were on their way back from a training course in Egypt.
Meanwhile, gunmen shot dead two members of Hamas's Executive Force during a funeral of Hamas militants killed in an Israeli air strike at a base in Rafah, a spokesman for the force, Islam Shahwan said.
He said members of the Fatah-dominated Preventive Security also "executed in cold blood" a Hamas militant in Gaza City. - Sapa-DPA
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