Hamas leader Haniyeh has vowed revenge for a shooting attack on his entourage, which occurred when he returned from his first trip abroad as PA Prime Minister. His personal bodyguard was killed and his son took a bullet to the shoulder - one of 30 people wounded in the crossfire between Hamas gunmen and forces loyal to PLO chairman Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah faction.
"We know the party that shot directly at our cars, injuring some of the people with me,” Haniyeh said. “And we also know how to deal with this."
Friday Hamas began deploying the armed groups under its control throughout Gaza, preparing for clashes with Fatah. PA police in Ramallah declared the center of the PA-controlled town a closed military zone after Hamas and Fatah's Al-Aqsa Brigades declared their intentions of following Friday prayers with armed marches through the center.
Security forces are out in force and businesses are closed in anticipation of clashes between the groups.
Earlier Thursday, Hamas-controlled terrorists took over the Gaza-Egypt border in a pitched gun battle with the Fatah-loyal PA police stationed there, after they prevented Haniyeh from smuggling a large amount of cash in with him upon his return from Egypt. European Union observers were whisked to safety, and refused to return, maintaining a closure on the Rafah crossing.
Meanwhile, Hamas terrorist detonated explosives, blowing yet another hole in the already porous border with the Sinai.
Fatah-loyal PA police arrested a Hamas man they say is responsible for the execution of the three children of a Fatah intelligence chief.
On Wednesday two Hamas men were wounded when a Fatah terrorist threw a hand-grenade into a crowd of Hamas men parading through Gaza’s Neseirat slums. Earlier that day a judge affiliated with Hamas was gunned down.
PA sources are talking about the possibility of full-blown civil war following Fatah chief Mahmoud Abbas’s much-hyped statement to be delivered Saturday in which he is expected to dissolve the government and call new elections in an attempt to turn back the clock on the Hamas victory that marginalized Yassir Arafat’s Fatah movement.