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Palestinian gunmen seize election offices

Dozens of masked Palestinian gunmen took over election offices in the Gaza Strip yesterday, exchanging fire with Palestinian police and demanding spaces on a list for Jan. 25 parliamentary elections.

The clashes came as the two main factions of the ruling Fatah Party -- the so-called "young" and "old" guards -- announced an end to an internal rift that threatened to bolster the electoral prospects of Hamas militants. Young guard members announced that Fatah will submit a single, unified list for the elections.

After intense negotiations, the two sides came together just two hours before an afternoon deadline yesterday for submitting the list.

"We affirm here that we are going to this election with one list. We are going to elections unified in Fatah to achieve a victory," said senior Palestinian official Mohammed Dahlan, a leader of the young guard.

In Gaza City yesterday, more than 60 gunmen stormed the main election office, exchanging fire with some 500 security forces who rushed to the scene, surrounding the building and setting up roadblocks. One policeman was wounded in the leg by gunfire and whisked away in an ambulance.

In Rafah, gunmen surrounded the election office, but Palestinian police prevented them from entering. In Khan Younis and Deir el-Balah, gunmen made it into the buildings.

All the standoffs ended within hours with the gunmen leaving the scene.

Such activity by gunmen has become increasingly common in the West Bank and Gaza in recent months, underscoring growing lawlessness in the Palestinian territories. Yesterday's violence highlighted the rising chaos within Fatah itself, adding the demands for participation of the Fatah-affiliated Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades to an already volatile mix of competing interests.

The Palestinian Interior Ministry condemned the mayhem, saying in a statement that attempts to take over election offices are "national crimes."

An Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades leader in Khan Younis, Abu Zakariya al Assouili, said his group tried to contact Abbas to push for greater participation in the party list but to no avail.

"We're objecting to a Palestinian election that does not represent a Palestinian vision," he said. "We want the base to dictate our fate, not America or Israel."

Dahlan said that yesterday's healing of the Fatah rift would augur well for stability in the Palestinian territories.

"Now Fatah is unified in one list and its Ministry of Interior has the responsibility of implementing law and stopping chaos," he said.

Fatah has been bitterly divided between party veterans and a young generation of activists -- led by jailed uprising leader Marwan Barghouti -- demanding a bigger role in party decision-making. Two weeks ago, the young guard broke off from the party to protest Fatah's slate of candidates and submitted its own list. Eager to bring the young guard back, Abbas agreed to redraw the party's list of candidates, giving top positions to younger activists.
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