Civil War Continues in Gaza

The Palestinian civil war continues, and things really heated up today.

Masked gunmen from rival Palestinian factions streamed onto the streets to fight their most intense battles in weeks on Sunday in the Gaza Strip, with the weekend toll rising to six dead and 59 wounded.

Among the victims was a pro-Hamas Islamic cleric pulled from his home and shot several times in the street after a guard from the rival Fatah movement was shot and thrown to his death from a high building in Gaza City, officials said.

Witnesses said masked gunmen from both Islamist Hamas and secular Fatah set up roadblocks and barriers to stop cars and check identification papers, and abducted rival supporters from vehicles and houses.

Main roads were paralysed by the fighting. Shops and businesses closed early.

The latest round of fighting, the worst since an Egyptian-brokered truce was declared in mid-May, began on Saturday night in the town of Rafah, where hundreds of rival gunmen took up positions on street corners and rooftops.

Hamas and Fatah pounded each other with rocket-propelled grenades and machineguns in Rafah, said witnesses who took shelter indoors as the rivals fought block by block.

Three men from Fatah and two from Hamas were killed in all, including the cleric of a main mosque in Gaza City, and a member of President Mahmoud Abbas's elite Force 17, hospital officials said.

A sixth man was brought to a Gaza City hospital on Sunday night with his hands and legs tied and a gunshot wound to the head, the officials said. Relatives identified this victim to Reuters as a relative of a senior Hamas executive force officer.

No wonder they're all depressed.