GAZA
CITY, October 8 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - The Palestine
Liberation Organization (PLO) called Tuesday, October 9, on people
"not to kill each other" following deadly clashes sparked by
the murder of a police commander in the Gaza Strip.
The
11 groups making up the PLO also condemned in their statement "all
attempts to sow discord" among Palestinians, after two days of
sporadic street fighting between Hamas members and police that claimed
the lives of four people, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.
"The
blood of Palestinians is sacred, and Palestinian arms must be used
solely against the Zionist enemy," they said, referring to the
latest two-year Intifada against the 54-old Israeli occupation of
Palestine.
Meanwhile,
the National and Islamic Forces, an umbrella group of the 13 main
Palestinian factions, including both Palestinian President Yasser
Arafat's resistance Fatah movement and the Islamic resistance movement
Hamas, met Tuesday night in Gaza City to calm the situation and reach an
agreement.
A
Hamas leader, Ismail Haniyeh, said the talks ended without any concrete
agreement being reached, but stressed the session had been a productive
one.
"Hamas
and Fatah met tonight and agreed to continue dialogue about stopping the
clashes," he told AFP by phone.
"We
will continue in our efforts towards national unity and have agreed to
have another meeting as soon as possible," Haniyeh said, adding he
was "hopeful it would put an end to all the clashes".
Zakaria
al-Agha, a Fatah leader in the Gaza Strip, earlier said Arafat's group
insisted the police chief's killers be handed over.
According
to the police, around 20 armed members of the Islamic resistance
movement Hamas, disguised as national security officers, on Monday
abducted and murdered the head of the Palestinian riot police, Brigadier
General Rajeh Abu-Lehya in revenge for the murder of two demonstrators
killed in anti-U.S. riots last October.
The
Hamas cell was headed by the brother of one of the slain youths and the
group said the killing was a family vendetta, a common occurrence in
Gaza's clan-based society.
Clashes
erupted shortly thereafter in and around Gaza City between police and
Hamas members and supporters - clashes that claimed four lives and left
dozens wounded. There were more clashes Tuesday, but no injuries were
reported.
Hamas
has denied it was involved in the killing of the police commander and
called the affair a settling of scores between families of the
protestors killed last year and police.
The
PLO groups denounced Abu-Lehya's killing as an "odious crime ...
committed in cold blood" and demanded that the killers be brought
to justice.
The
main groups in the PLO are President Arafat's Fatah faction, and the
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the Democratic Front
for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).
The
increasingly popular Islamic resistance groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad
are not part of the PLO.
At
the time the Palestinians are busy with an internal conflict, the
Israeli occupation army killed two Palestinian boys and wounded dozens
more youths Wednesday, showing no sign of easing its aggression in Gaza
despite repeated U.S. calls for restraint.
While
taking some steps to appease mounting criticism from U.S. President
George W. Bush, who is seeking calm on the Israeli-Palestinian front as
he prepares for a possible war on sanction-hit Iraq, Israel's far-right
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon remained defiant.
In
the southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah, tanks, escorting bulldozers
demolishing Palestinian houses along the Israeli-controlled border with
Egypt, opened fire and killed two Palestinian teenagers, medical sources
said.
A
crowd of angry stone-throwers which gathered following the murder of the
first boy, was targeted by another burst of heavy machine-gun fire from
the tanks that killed the second.
About
20 youths were wounded in the incident, 10 of them seriously, only two
days after a deadly Israeli army raid into the nearby town of Khan Yunis
killed 16 Palestinian civilians, drawing fierce international
condemnation.
The
deadly Monday raid drew condemnation from both the United Nations and
the European Union.
The
assault, which included tanks, bulldozers and helicopters, also met with
severe reprobation from the White House, where Sharon is due to hold
talks next week, and sparked Palestinian fears of a reoccupation of
Gaza.
Sharon
shrugged off Washington's "deep concern" and said his raids
would continue, qualifying Monday's pre-dawn operation as a
"success".
In
further Gaza violence, Israeli fire ripped through a school in Khan
Yunis on Wednesday, injuring eight Palestinians, including four
schoolboys, Palestinian security sources said.
On
Tuesday, a 12-year-old Palestinian girl was shot dead in Rafah.
Meanwhile,
in a bid to appease international ire over its assaults on Palestinian
civilians in the occupied territories, the Israeli army moved to
demolish what they call unauthorized outposts built by Jewish settlers
in the West Bank.
At
least two unoccupied outposts were dismantled near Nablus on the orders
of Defense Minister Binyamin Ben Eliezer, who reportedly plans to
proceed with the demolition of up to 30 such sites, including some which
are inhabited.
Built
without permission on Palestinian land occupied by Israel in the 1967
Middle East war, they are usually tiny makeshift settlements made up of
caravans, after which permanent buildings and security installations are
slowly added.
All
Jewish settlements are considered illegal by the international
community.