Over 20 Arabs were injured and one was killed in weekend clashes in Gaza between the Hamas and Fatah terror gangs.
The violence began on Friday when Fatah organized a prayer-protest against Hamas incitement. Fatah and PLO men called on worshippers in Gaza to pray outside, and not in the mosques, in protest against what Fatah calls "incitement" disseminated by Hamas imams (preachers) in the mosques.
A Fatah poster stated, "Every Friday, you are exposed to incitement and calls to murder you... There are arguments every prayer service between the worshipers and the imams..."
Fatah's directive that the outside prayer services should end quietly and not result in provocative gatherings went unheeded. Several protestors began throwing rocks and pipe bombs at Hamas buildings, and the Hamas policemen came at them with strong force. They fired into the air and beat protestors, injuring over 20. Some 170 Fatah protestors were arrested. They were released the next day, but not before Hamas shaved the heads of some of them as a way of humiliating them.
Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas, the chairman of the Palestinian Authority, announced afterwards, "Hamas is interested in instituting a blind dictatorship and extremist culture in opposition to the Palestinian nation's values and tradition."
On Saturday night, another anti-Hamas protest was held, this time by Gaza residents of all political persuasions as well as armed Fatah men. Tens of thousands demanded that Hamas open the Rafah border to Egypt, in the southern tip of Gaza. Hamas policemen fired into the crowd, killing a teen-aged Arab and wounding eight others. A passerby on the Egyptian side of Rafah was wounded by a stray bullet as well.
Meanwhile, the Egyptian newspaper Al-Ahram reports that in the course of a trial against the Muslim extremist group Islamic Brotherhood, a witness testified of tight cooperation between the group and Hamas. The witness stated that Hamas is the military arm of the Islamic Brotherhood, and that the two groups jointly arranged for Islamic Jihad terrorists to undergo military training in Palestinian Authority-controlled areas.
Hamas continues to refuse to release any information on kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, who was captured by the terror group on the Gaza border over 14 months ago. Hamas blames both Israel and Abbas for the failure of negotiations for Shalit's release. Egyptian sources involved in the talks for Shalit's freedom say there is "no point" in renewing the negotiations at this time.