KEY POINTS:
GAZA - Mourners firing automatic weapons stormed into the compound of the Palestinian parliament in Gaza yesterday, during a funeral procession for three boys who were earlier shot dead by unidentified gunmen.
Witnesses said the mourners fired at the building. It was unclear if anyone was hurt.
Unidentified
gunmen killed three sons of a Palestinian intelligence official loyal to President Mahmoud Abbas in Gaza yesterday after shooting at a car dropping the children at school, police and hospital officials said.
The attack, in which an adult bystander was also killed, came a day after gunmen opened fire at the interior minister's convoy in Gaza amid growing tension between the governing Hamas militant movement and Abbas's Fatah faction.
Interior Minister Saeed Seyam, a senior Hamas leader, was unharmed in that incident.
Police said two other children were wounded in Monday's attack. The senior intelligence official, Colonel Baha Balousha, was not in the car when it was fired on.
Residents said the gunmen fled with Hamas policemen in pursuit. Hospital officials said the dead boys were aged between 6 and 9. The dead bystander was a 25-year-old man, they said.
The car was peppered with bullet holes and blood stains covered the seats. Two school bags, one green and the other blue, were still inside.
Unknown gunmen tried to kill Balousha when they ambushed his car in Gaza in September, one of several attacks on top intelligence officials loyal to Abbas in the strip this year.
A senior Palestinian intelligence official in the occupied West Bank condemned the latest attack.
He said it was unclear who was behind it. Besides internal political unrest, Gaza is also riven with clan fighting and a surge in criminal violence following a Western aid embargo on the Hamas government that has deepened poverty.
"The killers knew Baha was not in the car because he never drove his children to school. They couldn't get to him to kill him, so they killed his children instead," the official said.
Political tensions have been rising over the failure of Hamas and the formerly dominant Fatah to form a unity government that Palestinians had hoped would end the Western boycott.
Aides to Abbas said on Saturday the president planned to call early elections after the unity talks foundered.
Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh accused Abbas of trying to topple his government, which came to power after Hamas defeated Fatah in elections in January. Haniyeh, on a trip to Iran, said fresh polls would worsen unrest.
The Interior Ministry called Sunday's attack on the minister's convoy "a result of the latest inflammatory statements against the government".
A Palestinian security patrol later arrested four men suspected of carrying out that shooting, officials said. They gave no details of the suspects' affiliation.
Unity talks have broken down over Hamas's rejection of Western demands to recognise Israel, and its insistence on holding the interior and finance portfolios in a new government.
The aid boycott is aimed at pressuring Hamas to recognise Israel, accept past peace deals and renounce violence.
Abbas, a moderate who favours peace negotiations with Israel, was elected separately in early 2005.
- REUTERS
