In an internal power struggle between security officials, a Palestinian policeman was killed in a Gaza gun battle with rival Palestinians.
Gaza was also the center of Israeli attention on Thursday because of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan to evacuate almost all Israeli settlers, but Sharon himself was answering police questions about a bribery scandal that could force him from office.
In the Gaza shootout, one policeman was killed and 10 were wounded, hospital officials said.
Police chief Ghazi Jabali, who was not hurt, called it an attempt to assassinate him, but a rival security service dismissed it as a "misunderstanding."
The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said a struggle for power between Jabali and former Gaza strongman Mohammed Dahlan led to the gun battle. Dahlan, who has been rebuilding his power base at the expense of Jabali, sent armed men to Jabali's headquarters.
One of them slapped the police chief, the officials said, and when Jabali's officers tried to intervene, Dahlan's men opened fire.
Turf struggles among more than a dozen Palestinian security agencies have flared into violence several times in the past.
Israel and the US have demanded that the squabbling agencies be united under a single Cabinet minister to facilitate a campaign against violent groups such as Hamas, but no such steps have been taken.
Also in the Gaza Strip, a Palestinian man was killed in an explosion in his home in the Bureij refugee camp, residents and hospital officials said.
Nasser Abu Shoka, 33, was a well-known member of Hamas, and the Islamic group accused Israel of killing him. However, the army said it had no forces in the area, and residents said he may have been building a bomb that went off by accident.
Hassan Shihab, 35, who owns a grocery store across the street, said the blast was in the house.
"I was sitting outside with friends and we did not see anything," he said.
Early yesterday, a Qassam rocket landed in an Israeli town bordering the Gaza Strip. One house was damaged, but no casualties were reported. Palestinian militants often fire homemade, highly inaccurate, short-range rockets at Israeli towns and Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip.
Earlier this week, Sharon proposed withdrawing from most of Gaza as part of the "unilateral disengagement" program he is preparing if peace talks remain frozen. Top aides have said he would start implementing it in the summer.
The plan includes imposing a boundary in the West Bank that would leave some of the territory under Israeli control. Palestinians denounce it as a land grab.
Sharon has said that the plan is not yet completed, but he dispatched his vice premier, Ehud Olmert, to Washington to discuss it.
"Israel will not remain in Gaza," Olmert said Thursday after meeting US officials.
The US has been critical of the unilateral concept, insisting that such moves must be the result of negotiations, but officials in Washington praised the plan to evacuate 17 of the 21 Gaza settlements.
About 7,500 Jewish settlers live in heavily guarded settlements in Gaza among 1.3 million Palestinians in a crowded, impoverished strip along the Mediterranean coast.
Critics charged that Sharon's surprise proposal to remove 17 settlements from Gaza was a ploy to deflect attention from the scandal.
"It's not only about removing settlements. It's about removing headlines," said Akiva Eldar, a columnist for the Haaretz daily.
Sharon has denied that, and Israel TV reported that Sharon also again denied any wrongdoing during more than two hours of police questioning.
"The prime minister cooperated fully," police spokesman Gil Kleiman said, adding that no further questioning of Sharon was planned. Sharon was also interrogated about the matter in October.
Last week a close associate of Sharon, real estate developer David Appel, was indicted for bribing Sharon. The charge sheet said he gave Sharon's son, Gilad, US$690,000 and pledged a further US$3 million to the family farm in exchange for Sharon's help in a business deal that eventually fell through.
Appel told Channel Two TV that the whole story was a "blood libel," and Sharon was not guilty of any wrongdoing.
Under Israeli law, a person can be convicted of accepting a bribe only if criminal intent is proven. However, if indicted, Sharon would probably have to step down.
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