Palestinian fighters end truce

Palestinian fighters added to the turmoil in the Gaza Strip on Sunday by kidnapping an Italian peace activist briefly and detonating explosives at the UN's beachfront social club after ending a yearlong truce.
The targeting of both foreigners and of Israelis in a series of rocket attacks served as a double blow to the crumbling authority of Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas, who said armed groups were making a serious mistake by declaring an end to the "cool-down".
Abbas has been a consistent critic of rocket attacks and has urged the factions to stop regarding themselves as above the law.
But rather than reverse a tide of lawlessness since Israel left Gaza in September, Abbas has presided over a worsening of the chaos.
Barely a day after the release of three Britons who were kidnapped near Gaza's border with Egypt, an Italian peace activist was briefly kidnapped on Sunday in the southern border city of Khan Yunis.
Alessandro Bernardini had been part of a group of around 20 Italians on a mission designed to show solidarity with the Palestinian people.
But shortly arriving in the city of Khan Yunis, he found himself being bundled into a vehicle by masked by gunmen who promptly sped him away.
Atif Alean, head of operations in the preventive security branch, said that the kidnappers and Bernardini had been traced several hours later to a house near Khan Yunis which was subsequently surrounded.
"The kidnappers opened fire against us. Our forces responded in the direction of the shooting but the kidnappers ran away from the area," he said.
A weary-looking Bernadini told reporters that he harboured no bitterness.
"I will never change my idea about the Israeli occupation of Palestine... I am with the Palestinian people," he said.
The Palestinian Authority is trying to attract foreign investment and aid to Gaza but the kidnappings are serving to scare people off.
All but a handful of the UN's foreign staff have left Gaza but the organisation was still the target of a gunmen overnight who stormed its club on the shores of the Mediterranean, beat up a lone security guard on duty and then detonated a number of hand grenades.
A UN source said that the club, the only place, which serves alcohol in the devoutly Muslim territory, had not been open for New Year celebrations as only three international staff remain in Gaza.
Despite repeated pledges, Abbas has failed to tackle the lawlessness of Gaza where members of armed factions, operating in the name of "resistance" to Israel, act above the law.
The main factions had signed up to a truce he brokered at the start of 2004, agreeing to "cool down" their campaign of attacks against Israel at least until the end of the year.