One dead in Gaza blasts

Bomb blasts have rocked a cafe and a Hamas politician's home in the Gaza Strip, killing one man, in a rare renewal of internal violence in the enclave seized by Islamists a year ago.

Hamas Interior Ministry spokesman Ehab al-Ghsain said the man killed in the explosion outside a popular cafe in Gaza City was the bomber, not a passerby as initially reported by Hamas security sources.

He accused Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah faction of being behind the explosion outside the house of Hamas leader Marwan Abu Rass, a charge Fatah denied. Nobody was hurt in that blast.

Mr Ghsain described the dead bomber as a "man of extreme thinking," referring to pro-al-Qaeda groups.

There have been similar bombings outside cafes in the Gaza Strip in the last two years, though few have resulted in casualties.

The Hamas Islamist group took control of the Gaza Strip a year ago after routing Abbas's more secular Fatah forces.

Since then factional fighting has been rare.

Gaza has been especially calm since an Egyptian-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Hamas took hold in June.

But the truce has stoked some tensions between Palestinian factions as Hamas has sought to prevent other groups from firing cross-border rockets at Israel.

Hamas has arrested some militants for violating the truce, which calls on Israel to halt its military operations and to ease its embargo on the coastal enclave.

Ghsain said Hamas detained a Fatah member for planting the bomb outside Abu Rass's home.

© Independent Television News Limited 2008. All rights reserved.

Share this article

Send this article to a friend »

• Del.icio.us
• Digg
• Reddit
• Facebook
• StumbleUpon

What are these?