A slaying stirs the hornet’s nest of Gaza

GAZA CITY —  A militiaman standing on the roof of his in-laws’ home was shot dead Wednesday in a disputed incident that led to the worst day of clashes between Palestinian factions since they agreed to a truce two weeks ago. Four other people died in the violence in the Gaza Strip.

The renewed fighting raised concerns that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, the leader of Fatah, and Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, who heads the Hamas government, are not able or willing to stop their security services and militias from plunging the Palestinians into wider conflict.

Rival gunmen poured into the streets of the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiya after the 25-year-old Fatah-affiliated militiaman, Ala Mohammed Inaya, died from a single bullet to the head. Ensuing clashes left a 22-year-old female bystander dead and 17 other people, mostly combatants, wounded.

Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said the militiaman was killed by accident as a result of a gun being fired at close range. But the dead man’s family said his brother-in-law, the only other person on the roof, was unarmed. The family and Fatah officials blamed the daytime killing on an unseen Hamas sniper.

The violence spread to the southern Gaza city of Khan Yunis with the abduction of the local deputy chief of Fatah’s Preventive Security Service police.

Members of the force met resistance while storming a house where they believed their colleague was being held, a Fatah statement said, and one officer was injured. The car rushing him to a hospital after dark was attacked by the Executive Force, a Hamas paramilitary unit, and three Fatah officers were killed. Hamas and Fatah accused each other of shooting first.

Separately, armed men abducted two guards of a Preventive Security Service colonel in an attack on his convoy in the northern Gaza town of Jabaliya.

The factions have fought intermittent street battles since last spring when Hamas, victorious in elections, took over the Palestinian Authority government, which had long been dominated by Fatah.

Seventeen people were killed in December after Abbas said he would call new elections more than two years ahead of schedule to try to unseat Hamas, the militant Iranian-backed Islamist movement that resists his efforts to restart peace negotiations with Israel.

A truce brokered by Egypt last month crumbled Monday when Hamas gunmen shot at a brother of a senior Fatah militant in the Gaza Strip. The rival factions then went on a kidnapping spree but later freed 14 captives after mediation by a third militant group, Islamic Jihad.

Islamic Jihad intervened again Wednesday night, trying to restore calm in Khan Yunis. A statement by the group said Hamas and Fatah had agreed to withdraw all gunmen from the streets, leaving the city’s security in the hands of local police.

But witnesses said later Wednesday that neither Hamas nor Fatah appeared to be complying with the reported accord.

Various Palestinian security services, meanwhile, searched a third day for abducted photographer Jaime Razuri, who works for Agence France-Presse. The 50-year-old Peruvian was seized Monday by several unmasked gunmen in Gaza City as he was returning from an assignment with an interpreter and a driver.

No group claimed responsibility for the kidnapping, and AFP said there had been no word on the photographer’s fate. In a statement, the news service demanded Razuri’s release, saying his life was in danger because he lacked the medicine he takes for heart disease.

“Despite assurances from Palestinian officials that they are doing everything possible to help with the search, we are deeply concerned over Jaime’s health and safety,” the statement said.

At least 20 foreigners, including six journalists, have been kidnapped in the Gaza Strip in a little more than a year, most of them in incidents unrelated to the factional fighting. All have been released unharmed, most after a few hours. An exception was the two-week abduction of two Fox News journalists last summer.

Hani Masri, a Palestinian political analyst, said Abbas bears the most responsibility for the factional violence and a general breakdown of law and order. Commanding the loyalty of the largest number of security personnel, about 50,000 fighters, “he has the means to control the situation, but he is not acting because he is politically weak,” Masri said.

Haniyeh’s government, Masri said, shares some blame for having created the Executive Force, a parallel security agency that is fighting to weaken the Fatah-led security services and gain dominance. Fatah militants, meanwhile, are sowing disorder in an effort to bring down the Hamas-led government, he added.

“There are groups on both sides that support the internal fighting,” Masri said. “It is in their interest to maintain the lawlessness and the bloodshed.”

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Times staff writer Boudreaux reported from Jerusalem and special correspondent Abu Alouf from Gaza City. Special correspondent Maher Abukhater in Ramallah, West Bank, contributed to this report.