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Fatah fighters in retreat as Hamas claims to seize Gaza
Palestinian President Abbas's elite Presidential Guard retreats as concerns grow about all-out civil war.
The Associated Press reports that Fatah gunmen were in retreat throughout Gaza Thursday morning, pulling back to the party's last stronghold in Gaza City and destroying installations to prevent them from falling into Hamas's hands.
Meanwhile, Hamas "declared the 'liberation' of the Gaza Strip" after capturing the last Fatah strongholds in Gaza, Reuters reports late Thursday morning.
"What happened today in the Preventive Security headquarters was the second liberation of the Gaza Strip," Sami Abu Zuhri told Reuters, referring to the withdrawal of Israeli troops and settlers in 2005 as the first time an occupation had ended.
"This time it was liberated from the herds of the collaborators," he said of Fatah, which has pursued peace negotiations with Israel. "Last time, it was liberated from the herds of the settlers."Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas called for his Presidential Guard, composed of loyalists from his Fatah Party, to jump into the fray against Hamas fighters in the Gaza strip.
Many newspapers and observers described this as a last-ditch effort to maintain a presence in the Gaza Strip and worried that the infighting could deliver a devastating blow to the embryonic Palestinian state and hopes for meaningful peace talks with Israel.
By early afternoon, the green flag of Hamas had been hoisted over Fatah's Preventive Security headquarters in Gaza City, Reuters reported, with one Abbas aide telling diplomats that "Gaza is lost ."
Witnesses told the Associated Press that victorious Hamas gun men dragged some of the survivors of the assault into the street and then murdered them. The Associated Press also reports that Hamas had seized control of Rafah, the strategic town on the border with Egypt.
The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that hundreds of Fatah officials – once stalwart enemies of Israel – requested the Jewish state's help in organizing a sea evacuation from Gaza, fearing for their lives.
The violent political competition prompted speculation that the Palestinians are now engaged in a civil war in Gaza, reports the Associated Press.
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