Hamas Forces Shoot Own Supporters at Rally; Youth Killed

By ISABEL KERSHNER

JERUSALEM, Sept. 1 — Shots from Hamas security forces hit the group’s own supporters in Gaza on Saturday when a rally near the Egyptian border threatened to spiral out of control, witnesses said. One teenager was killed and several other demonstrators were wounded, Palestinian medics said.

Hamas had called for the demonstration, which thousands attended, to protest the closing of the Rafah border crossing. It has been closed since Hamas seized control of Gaza in June.

Members of the Hamas paramilitary police force fired into the air to disperse protesters who were trying to dash into Egypt, the witnesses said. The teenager, identified as Muhammad Qdaih, 17, was hit and died a short while later. A spokesman for the Hamas-run Interior Ministry in Gaza, Ehab al-Ghsein, said officials were trying “to determine where the shot came from.”

The border incident came as tensions mounted in Gaza between Hamas and its rival, Fatah. Early Saturday, a bomb destroyed the car of a Palestinian affiliated with Hamas. The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah, called a meeting of the Palestine Liberation Organization Executive Committee in Ramallah for Saturday evening. He said the committee, which represents most Palestinian factions but not Hamas, would discuss developments in the Gaza Strip and “ways of protecting our people from the madness and repression.”

On Friday, thousands of Palestinians in Gaza defied Hamas to join a Fatah-inspired protest, clashing with Hamas forces. Several protesters were injured and dozens detained, reports from Gaza said. A Fatah spokesman, Ahmed Abdel Rahman, called the protest the start of “a new era in the Palestinian national struggle to cleanse the homeland of Hamas gangs.”

No one was hurt in the car blast on Saturday. Mr. Ghsein, the Interior Ministry spokesman in Gaza, said Fatah leaders were behind the attack. “We have strong confirmation of a new network involving the powerful leaders in Ramallah and their misled supporters in Gaza,” he said.

Mr. Ghsein said that five other explosions went off in Gaza City in recent weeks, mainly near Hamas-run security compounds. He added that some arrests had been made, and that Hamas security officials had been “tracking phone calls” between the suspects in the blasts and their handlers in Ramallah.

A Fatah official in Ramallah, who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak with reporters, dismissed Mr. Ghsein’s statements as “not true at all.”

Safwat al-Kahlout contributed reporting from Gaza City.