http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2009/06/200964131434353898.html
UPDATED ON:
Thursday, June 04, 2009
22:25 Mecca time, 19:25 GMT
Palestinians killed in police raid
Police encircled a house where three Hamas fighters were
hiding in the basement [AFP]
One Palestinian policeman and two Hamas fighters have been killed in the
town of Qalqilya in the West Bank, officials have said.
Shooting erupted when police loyal to Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian
president and leader of Fatah, surrounded a house on Thursday to arrest
suspected Hamas fighters.
Al Jazeera's Nour Odeh, reporting from Qalqilya, said security forces
first thought three Hamas fighters had been killed but sources later told her
one of them had survived and surrendered.
Odeh said security forces had discovered three Hamas members in the
basement of a house belonging to a man already in police custody.
"As soon as that basement was discovered, the policeman was shot.
"There were several attempts to negotiate their peaceful surrender. The
mother of one of the Hamas gunmen came along with her son and nephew to try to
convince the three to surrender their weapons but they refused.
"According to witnesses they shot back at the police."
Water canons
Odeh said the police had used teargas and water canons, trying to get the
fighters to come out, and then tried to dig through a tunnel which was part of
the hideout.
"Apparently the sewage system flooded the basement, probably leading to
these men's tragic death."
The fighting was the latest in a series of incidents that have further
stoked tensions between Abbas' Fatah movement and Hamas, which controls the
Gaza Strip.
Earlier this week, three police officers, two Hamas fighters and the
owner of a house that was raided by the police were killed in fighting in
Qalqilya, following a dawn raid on suspected Hamas members.
The raid sparked angry demonstrations by Hamas supporters in the Gaza
Strip.
Hamas says that Fatah-dominated security forces are pursuing a
politically motivated crackdown against Hamas activists, a claim which Fatah
has also made about Hamas in Gaza.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
