GAZA CITY, Aug 14, (AFP) - A radical sheikh was among 24 people killed and 130 wounded after Hamas police stormed a Gaza mosque when he declared an Islamic emirate in the Palestinian enclave, medics said today.
The shooting erupted on Friday afternoon following weekly prayers in Rafah, on the Egyptian border, and continued until dawn on Saturday.
“Clashes... between Hamas and an extremist group in the southern Gaza Strip left 24 people dead and at least 130 wounded,” a spokesman for the Palestinian emergency services told AFP.
Four of the wounded were considered to be “clinically dead” and many more “seriously wounded,” the spokesman added.
Abdul Latif Musa, identified by an internet statement from Jund Ansar Allah (Soldiers of the Partisans of God) as its leader, was killed while fighting Hamas forces besieging his house, the interior ministry said.
Witnesses reported a number of explosions there, but it was not clear how the man died. His aide Abu Abdullah as-Suri also died in the house.
Mohammed al-Shamali, the Hamas military chief for southern Gaza, and five policemen were also listed as killed, and 10 police wounded.
A three-year-old Egyptian boy was seriously wounded by a bullet from the fighting across the border, but was said to be recovering on Saturday when the clashes died down allowing the reopening of the Gaza-Egypt border to Muslim pilgrims. |
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