Palestinian parliament, cabinet offices torched, Civil War,WWW.PROISRAELFOREVER.COM

Palestinian factional rivalry erupted into unprecedented violence as
followers of president Mahmud Abbas set fire to the parliament and West
Bank cabinet offices while supporters of the Hamas government tried to
storm a security compound in Gaza.

Militants loyal to Abbas's Fatah faction set fire to the ground floor
of the parliament building in Ramallah where the flames quickly leapt
through the rest of the complex.

Gunmen from the same Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades also torched the cabinet
building in Ramallah after hundreds of security officers, staffed
largely by Fatah followers, forced their way into the premises and
opened fire.

Black smoke spewed into the night sky out of the fourth floor of the
five-storey cabinet building as fire engines rushed to the scene but
were prevented by militants from trying to extinguish the flames.

Protesting against deadly violence between Fatah faithful and loyalists
of the ruling Hamas movement, which today controls government after
beating Abbas's party at a January election, Fatah gunmen and security
officers smashed windows, destroyed computers and tore up files.

In a bid to contain the situation, Abbas issued an edict placing the
Palestinian security forces on a maximum state of alert and ordered all
armed groups off the streets of Gaza.

Outside the burning cabinet offices, a masked Al-Aqsa leader who
refused to give his name called the protests a "normal response to
Hamas aggressions against Palestinian Authority institutions and
security service premises".

"We demand president Abbas sacks the government and appoints an
emergency cabinet. We blame Hamas for this rift which risks provoking
civil war," he told reporters.

In another sign of the anarchy blighting the Palestinian territories,
two people were killed and at least 17 wounded in Rafah, in southern
Gaza, where Hamas gunmen tried to storm the preventive security service
headquarters.

Hundreds of security reinforcements were dispatched to Rafah after
Hamas militants managed to smash their way through a wall surrounding
the headquarters by firing rocket-propelled grenades.

Shortly afterwards, Hamas MP Khalil al-Rabaei was briefly kidnapped by
masked men in the West Bank city of Ramallah. A second Hamas official
was also briefly kidnapped and then released in Gaza by gunmen.

The clashes at the compound took place shortly after a Hamas supporter
was killed in fighting that flared after a funeral for another Hamas
follower who died from wounds suffered during a previous bout of
infighting 10 days ago.

An AFP correspondent at the scene said the three-storey building in
central Rafah was riddled with bullets and many of the windows had been
shot to pieces.

Cars parked within the compound had also been shot up by the Hamas
followers, their windscreens shattered and tyres slashed.

Yussef Siam, head of preventive security in Rafah, said around 20 of
his men were in the compound when more than 100 Hamas followers
launched their attack.

In the gunbattle that ensued, a 34-year-old deaf civilian, Suleiman
Zanoun, was killed after being caught up in the crossfire.

Although the Hamas gunmen were not wearing the uniform of a recently
formed paramilitary force, Siam said they were members of the unit.

"This is a force that acts beyond the realms of the law. If they start
targeting the government institutions, this will be the end of the
Palestinian Authority," he told AFP amid a mass of broken glass, rubble
and bloodstains.

Witnesses said the clashes only broke up after hundreds of civilians
massed at the scene and started chanting "Unity, Unity" as a sign of
their disgust at the bloodshed.

The Hamas paramilitary force was deployed on the streets of Gaza last
month despite having been explicitly vetoed by Abbas, who is
responsible for security under the terms of the Palestinian basic law.

Although the force is meant to have been withdrawn from view in a bid
to ease tensions between the two sides, Abbas's announcement over the
weekend of a referendum on coexistence with Israel has reignited the
situation.

During a press conference in Ramallah, Fatah spokesman Jamal al-Tirawi
placed "responsibility for the incidents (Monday) in the Gaza Strip on
the Hamas-led government" and called on Abbas to take the "decisions
necessary to control the situation."

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