Violence erupts in Gaza City and Khan Younis as security forces loyal to Fatah face-off with counterparts loyal to Hamas, reports Erica Silverman Fierce gun battles erupted between Hamas Executive Forces and the Palestinian Presidential Guard, loyal to Fatah, Sunday morning in Khan Younis and midday in Gaza City over unpaid salaries. Earlier that morning Interior Minister Said Syiam deployed Executive Forces along the main streets and at major junctions in cities and towns across the Gaza Strip to end violent protests by Fatah-affiliated security forces. Crowds gathered early Sunday near the Bank of Palestine on Omar Al-Mukhtar Street in the centre of Gaza City to withdraw salaries. Angry protests began when employees realised their full salary was unattainable. Banks retained a portion of the payment to pay back outstanding loans in a bid to keep banks operating in the Palestinian territories afloat amidst crippling economic sanctions against the Hamas-led government. Presidential Guard Forces were deployed to protect the banks and clashes erupted that turned a placid inner-city park, adjacent to the parliament building, into a war zone. Scores of students and businesspeople ran full speed for cover, some with their hands raised in the air, as members of the Executive Force opened fire on crowds of civilians and beat protestors with sticks. The violence spread, eventually reaching the president's residence, and continued into the night as forces exchanged gunfire and protestors overturned flaming dumpsters. The same scene was witnessed in Khan Younis Sunday when dozens of police gathered outside the Bank of Palestine to withdraw salaries. Mobs of young Hamas and Fatah loyalists hurled rocks and chunks of cement at each other. Angry protests over the Gaza violence began in the West Bank, where Fatah supporters pelted the Palestinian cabinet building with rocks and set the building aflame. A second government building was attacked as protestors marched through the city centre of Ramallah. As of late Monday, the civilian death toll of the clashes had reached eight persons, including one child, with 70 injured, according to As-Shiffa Hospital in Gaza City. President Abbas and Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh tried to calm the situation down late Sunday following the worst day of violence yet seen between Fatah and Hamas. "I appeal to all citizens to be responsible and to abandon their differences, especially in the time we are facing an escalation by the occupation forces, who threaten to enlarge their scale of aggression," said Haniyeh in Gaza. Haniyeh and Abbas have been trying to form a national unity government to mute internal conflicts and undermine justifications for international sanctions. Government spokesperson Ghazi Hamad said the violence was "regrettable," yet asserted, "The protest was beyond acceptable legal norms and turned into lawlessness." Government employees have gone unpaid for nearly seven months after Israel decided to withhold $54 million in monthly tax revenue owed to the Palestinian Authority as punishment for Hamas's electoral victory in January and in violation of the Paris Protocol concluded alongside the Oslo Accords. Abbas' office controls the Presidential Guard, National Intelligence and National Security, while the Interior Ministry controls the police, Preventive Security Services, and the Executive Force. There is little coordination between security forces, although Minister Syiam answers to Abbas. A senior commander of the Executive Force agreed to speak to Al-Ahram Weekly on condition of anonymity. He holds a place on Israel's most wanted list and Israeli forces recently levelled his home. He meets regularly with Chief of Police for the West Bank and Gaza General Ala Housni at police headquarters in Gaza City. At face value their relationship seems amicable, as they strategise during late night meetings how to resolve the security crisis that has devastated Gaza. Most of the violence emanates from influential families acting above the law and Al-Aqsa militants loyal to Fatah. The controversial Executive Force was deployed first in Gaza's streets in May. After several Palestinians were killed and scores wounded following clashes, the force was removed. The Executive Force, now on the government's payroll, is comprised mostly of Ezzeddin Al-Qassam members -- Hamas' military wing. The 5,000-strong force is in the process of being integrated into the police, according to the commander. He also claims there is coordination with the Preventive Security Services. He is trying, he told the Weekly, to transform his forces from military to police officers but lacks the necessary resources, such as training facilities. The Palestinian police force is already short of weapons and vehicles, and 40 per cent of the force has not shown up for work in several months due to unpaid salaries. There are 12,000 police officers in Gaza and according to the commander, about 20,000 members of Al-Qassam. "Interior Minster Said Syiam has met with all factions and asked them to stop launching missiles [into Israel], yet we need incentives to stop them: open Rafah, open Karni, people are in a state of despair," said the commander, asserting that Al-Qassam is holding fire. Islamic Jihad also agreed to stop, but continues on the ground, he said. "We are not coming in to crush factions or to stop the resistance: we want a dialogue." Fatah is sceptical whether members of the Executive Force are capable of separating from Al-Qassam. Tension has been building as the nearly four-month long Israeli incursion into Gaza, purportedly to halt the launching of Qassam rockets into Israel and to secure the recovery of an Israeli soldier captured by Hamas 25 June, continues. Gaza's commercial and passenger border crossings were sealed after the capture and have opened only sporadically since, creating a shortage of medical supplies and basic food commodities across the Strip. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will arrive Tuesday in Israel to discuss steps for strengthening Abbas and weakening Hamas by "creative" means such as channelling funds through the President's Office and bolstering security forces loyal to Abbas, reported Haaretz newspaper. It's a dangerous strategy, considering the level of tension between Palestinian security forces at this time. This violent power struggle has led some to predict civil war, though it is unclear whether the necessary social divisions for such a conflict are present in Palestinian society, and loyalties are blurred. The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) estimates Gaza has incurred $46 million worth of material damage from Israeli operations conducted 26 June through 28 August 2006. The cost of repairs is even higher, not to mention lost income and production. Israeli Military Chief Lieutenant-General Dan Halutz said this week that Israel would likely increase its military action in the Gaza Strip soon to halt rocket fire. Gaza's agricultural sector was the hardest hit from the destruction of olive and citrus orchards, greenhouses, livestock farms, water wells, irrigation networks and fences with a price tag of $23.5 million, according to the UNDP. Rafah, known as the food basket of Gaza, suffered nearly $9 million worth of destruction to the agricultural sector. Mayor of As-Shoka district in Rafah, Mansour Breek, asserts that he and community leaders have called on militant factions not to fire rockets from farms and homes along the border. Yet even if farms or homes were being used as locations from which to launch rockets, Israel, according to international law, is not permitted to instigate forms of collective punishment in retaliation. Nearly 600 homes in As-Shoka were damaged or destroyed according to the city mayor. "[Rocket fire into Israel] came as a response to Israel's destruction of homes in Rafah. It is not a strategy; it is a response to the violence and destruction of the Israeli occupation," said Islamic Jihad spokesperson Khaled Al-Buttish.
