A member of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement shot and wounded an official of a pro-Syrian faction Saturday in a refugee camp of south Lebanon, Palestinian sources said.
According to the report, Fatah member Hussein Seyyed stormed into offices in the Ain el-Hilweh camp to demanded the immediate release of his son, was being questioned on suspicions of rape.
Seyyed began shooting when his demands were not met, wounding Abed Makdah, an official of the pro-Syrian group Al Saiqa and the head of a committee holding the rape suspect.
Seyyed's son was also wounded, it was reported.
Tensions have risen in the camp since Thursday when four people were wounded in a dispute between a member of a small Islamist group and Fatah members. Some 367,000 Palestinians live in Lebanon, more than half in a dozen camps dotted around the country.
In other developments, Palestinian kidnappers won promises of payoffs for themselves and for comrades in Israeli prisons Saturday in exchange for freeing three foreign church workers, Palestinian officials said.
The promises by the Palestinian Authority came in a new test of strength between militant groups and the security forces, which recently were put under the authority of Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia.
The flare-up of trouble indicated that the agreement last week by Qureia and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat to share control of the security forces has failed to calm the underlying tensions that led to a paralyzing leadership crisis between the two men.
Five gunmen seized the three church volunteers -- an American, a Briton and an Irishmen -- Friday night near their apartments and took them to the Balata refugee camp.
At around the same time, about a dozen armed men broke into the governor's building in the northern West Bank town of Jenin and set it on fire.
Both groups demanded financial support from the Palestinian Authority, which gives unofficial payments to militants sought by Israel, according to security officials and the militants themselves.
The Palestinian Authority officially denies that it funds the militants, but some officials, including lawmakers, say support is given to militants who pledge not to attack targets inside Israel.
Officials said the kidnappers, who belonged to a splinter group of the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, were told that all their demands will be met, and that the abduction was undermining the Palestinian cause in the eyes of the world.
The demands were for an unspecified amount of support for themselves and for imprisoned comrades, and the promise was made with Arafat's approval, the officials said.
The militants drove the hostages to a park in the early hours of Saturday and called the security forces to pick them up, the officials said.
The foreigners were first taken to the Nablus office of the Palestinian intelligence, then spent the rest of the night as guests of Ghassan Shaka'a, a close aide of Yasser Arafat.
The released hostages refused to speak to reporters, and their identities were not released.
The chief of Palestinian intelligence services in Nablus, Talal Duikat, said Saturday that his forces were searching for four known suspects wanted in an investigation into the kidnappings. The suspects were not related to any specific group, Duikat said.
Palestinian security forces were ``shocked'' by the kidnappings and Arafat instructed them ny phone to do everything to get the captives released quickly, Duikat said.
"The kidnappings have grave significance for the Palestinian people," Duikat said in a press conference. "I say to the entire world that we will protect every person who comes to visit us and they don't have anything to be afraid of."
In Jenin, the local commander of the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, Zakaria Zubeidi, and his followers gutted the headquarters of the newly appointed governor, Qaddora Mousa. The building was empty and no one was hurt.
Zubeidi made no attempt to hide his identity, and returned to the burned out building in the morning carrying an assault rifle for the benefit of photographers.
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