Hamas Overruns Rival Fatah's Key Posts (AP gets in Israel dig by 2nd para)

Hamas Overruns Rival Fatah's Key Posts (AP gets in Israel dig by 2nd para)

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) - Hamas fighters overran two of the rival Fatah movement's most important security command centers in the Gaza Strip on Thursday, and witnesses said the victors dragged vanquished gunmen into the street and shot them to death execution-style.

Meanwhile, an Israeli tank shell struck a group of siblings near the southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah on Thursday, Hamas security officials said. Hospital workers said five children, all under 16, were killed.

They identified the children as members of the Abu Matrok family.

Hamas security officials said they were from the Bedouin community of Showka, east of Rafah.

The army said it would look into the report.

Hamas also seized control of Rafah in the south, Gaza's third-largest city, according to witnesses and security officials. It was the second main Gaza city to fall to the militants, who captured nearby Khan Younis on Wednesday.

Hamas captured the Preventive Security headquarters and the intelligence services building n Gaza City, major advances in the Islamic group's attempts to take over Gaza.

After the rout at the Preventive Security headquarters, some of the Hamas fighters kneeled outside, touching their foreheads to the ground in prayer. Others led Fatah gunmen out of the building, some shirtless or in their underwear, holding their arms in the air. Several of the Fatah men flinched as the crack of gunfire split the air.

A witness, who identified himself only as Amjad, said men were killed as their wives and children watched.

"They are executing them one by one," Amjad said in a telephone interview, declining to give his full name for fear of reprisals. "They are carrying one of them on their shoulders, putting him on a sand dune, turning him around and shooting."

Fatah officials said Hamas shot and killed seven of its fighters outside the Preventive Security building. A doctor at Shifa Hospital, said he examined two bodies that had been shot in the head at close range. The officials and the doctor spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.

Militants and civilians were looting the compound, hauling out computers, documents, office equipment, furniture and TVs.

The moderate President Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah, for the first time in five days of fierce fighting, ordered his elite presidential guard to strike back. But his forces were crumbling fast under the onslaught by the better-armed and better-disciplined Islamic fighters.

In all, 14 fighters and civilians were killed and 80 wounded in the battle for the Preventive Security complex, bringing the day's death toll to 25 by mid-afternoon, hospital and security officials said. About 90 people, mostly fighters but also women and children, have been killed since a spike in violence Sunday sent Gaza into civil war.

The two factions have warred sporadically since Hamas took power from Fatah last year, but never with such intensity. Hamas reluctantly brought Fatah into the coalition in March to quell an earlier round of violence, but the uneasy partnership began crumbling last month over control of the powerful security forces.

Hamas had been tightening its ring around the Preventive Security complex for three days, stepping up its assault late Wednesday, with a barrage of bullets, grenades, mortar rounds and land mines that continued until the compound fell. Electricity and telephone lines were cut, and roads leading to the complex were blocked. Hamas claimed it confiscated two cars filled with arms sent as reinforcements.

As Hamas took this major battle spoil, the Palestine Liberation Organization's top body recommended that Abbas declare a state of emergency and dismantle Fatah's governing coalition with Hamas. Abbas said he would review the recommendations and make decision within hours, said an aide, Nabil Amr.

"We are telling our people that the past era has ended and will not return," Islam Shahawan, a spokesman for Hamas' militia, told Hamas radio. "The era of justice and Islamic rule have arrived."

[snip]