Palestinian Interior Minister Hani al-Qawasmi resigned yesterday, rocking a two-month-old unity government, after the biggest surge in factional fighting in months revived fears of civil war.
Two Palestinian gunmen were killed in Gaza in clashes between the rival Hamas and Fatah groups, hours before a government official announced that Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh had accepted the resignation.
As interior minister, Qawasmi was to have overseen Palestinian security services but officials said the former academic faced competition from powerful Fatah rivals for control of the armed contingents.
The resignation cast new doubt on whether the power-sharing partnership between Islamist Hamas and secular Fatah would be able to survive.
Sources in President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah said tensions stoked by the renewed violence with Hamas, despite an Egyptian-brokered ceasefire late on Sunday, could lead to the collapse of the unity government within days.
"A new interior minister will be agreed upon soon in consultations and agreement with President Mahmoud Abbas," a senior government official said.
Filling the post had been one of the main obstacles to forming the current coalition government.
Hospital officials said a civilian, shot in factional fighting on Sunday, died of his wounds, raising to seven the number of people killed since a new round of clashes erupted over the weekend. At least 40 people have been wounded.
The latest clashes erupted in several locations in the coastal strip and lead to six deaths and three dozen wounded in less than 24 hours.
Among the dead were two employees of a Hamas-affiliated newspaper who were shot after being pulled out of a taxi at a Fatah roadblock on Sunday, according to Hamas' account. If confirmed, this tactic would mark a further escalation and would likely provoke more execution-style killings.
Israel's Security Cabinet, meanwhile, decided to hold off for now on a major military operation in Gaza.In a meeting on Sunday, the ministers were weighing a response to intensifying rocket fire from Gaza and the army's warnings that Hamas is stockpiling weapons smuggled into the strip.
Instead, the army was given permission to step up targeted attacks against those firing the rockets, Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz said.
"The decision to go into Gaza, to occupy Gaza is one that can be taken at any time but we have to understand its significance," Peretz told Israel Radio."We, the government, need to examine, what are the consequences of each and every action and ... [whether] we want to play into the hands of those extremists who are interested in bringing about escalation."
In Gaza, an Egyptian security delegation brought Hamas and Fatah together on Sunday night and got them to agree to withdraw their forces and exchange captives.
But hours later, Fatah said Hamas attacked one of its offices in Gaza City, hurling hand grenades and firing automatic weapons. Hamas said that Fatah men attacked a roadblock manned by its militiamen.
Hamas and Fatah set up a coalition government in March, with the goal of ending months of bloody clashes between forces loyal to the two sides. But a new round of violence followed last week's deployment of 3,000 police in Gaza from forces loyal to Abbas, over Hamas objections.
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