One Palestinian was killed on Thursday following clashes between Hamas gunmen and members of security forces loyal to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, security and medical sources said.
Khader Afana, 40, a preventive security officer, was standing at his post in central Gaza City when Hamas gunmen shot him, a security source said.
He died shortly after arriving at hospital from abdominal wounds, a medical source said.
PHOTO: AP
Elsewhere, two members of security forces loyal to Abbas and a third person were wounded in the southern Gaza Strip town of Abassan after fighting broke out with gunmen loyal to the Islamist movement, another security source said.
A security official accused members of the armed wing of Hamas, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, of having opened fire on a car in which the two members were traveling. The third wounded person's identity was not immediately known.
Three members of Abbas' Fatah party were also wounded overnight on Wednesday by Hamas activists in the southern Gaza Strip town of Khan Yunis, sources said.
Earlier on Thursday, thousands of Palestinian security men fired automatic rifles and vandalized the parliament in Gaza in one of the biggest protests over unpaid wages since the Hamas government took office in March.
The clashes have disrupted a tenuous peace that had been in place since Abbas and Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh's Hamas-led government began talks last week to try to end violence in Gaza.
Protesters in Gaza criticized a plan by Haniyeh, who is also a senior leader of the Hamas Islamic militant group, to make only partial payments to employees of the Palestinian Authority in the next few days.
"We want to know when this tragedy will stop," one security official shouted through a loudspeaker outside the parliament building in central Gaza City. The protest occurred while lawmakers were holding a routine session.
No one was hurt, but witnesses said demonstrators smashed windows and a lawmaker added they damaged doors, air-conditioners and electronic equipment.
Most of the demonstrators were from forces loyal to Abbas' Fatah movement.
The new government has been unable to pay salaries for three months to 165,000 government workers after the US and other Western countries imposed sanctions over Hamas's refusal to recognize Israel, disarm and accept interim peace accords.
The embargo has deepened a humanitarian crisis in the occupied West Bank and Gaza.
Haniyeh pledged on Tuesday to pay a full month's wages in a few days to 40,000 workers whose monthly salaries are less than 1,500 shekels (US$330).
He also promised to pay each of the other 125,000 government workers, who earn higher salaries, an advance of 1,500 shekels.
The finance minister later said that it was unclear when workers who earn more would get their money.
Hamas formed a government in March after beating Fatah in parliamentary elections in January.
Abbas, a moderate, was elected separately early last year in a ballot Hamas did not contest.
The latest unrest comes a day after a senior UN official said that international proposals to pay only some Palestinian workers, mainly in the health sector, could fuel tensions unless major donors agreed to leave the door open to expand the mechanism later to pay security forces and others. Approximately 70,000 security men are on the government payroll.
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