Ten Palestinians were shot and wounded, three of them seriously, as gunmen battled forces loyal to Yasser Arafat's new security chief in southern Gaza on Sunday in a fresh spate of internal violence that signalled a growing breakdown of law and order.
The 10 members of the radical Palestinian group Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades were among more than 150 Palestinians who had attempted to storm the headquarters of the Palestinian military intelligence service, which is led by Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's nephew Musa.
Hundreds of gunmen, many of them masked, exchanged heavy fire with forces loyal to Arafat's cousin Moussa Arafat, whom he appointed as Gaza's new security chief following a series of high-profile abductions in the strip over the weekend.
The stand-off stepped up pressure on Arafat to wipe out alleged widespread corruption that sparked the crisis that was deepened by the resignation of his Prime Minister Ahmed Qurie.
Arafat has not seen such turmoil since his Palestinian Authority took control over most of the Gaza Strip in 1994 under interim peace accords with Israel.
In a show of force, thousands of gunmen marched across the Gaza Strip on Sunday night demanding that Arafat fire Moussa Arafat, a member of an old guard widely viewed as corrupt.
"This corruption is like a cancer," gunmen shouted in a rally at the Nusseirat refugee camp in central Gaza. "We are against corruption, against corrupt government and for reforms".
At a meeting on Sunday of the Palestinian National Security Council, Arafat told Qurie he "strongly rejects" his decision to quit, cabinet minister Saeb Erekat said.
Calls for reform have multiplied amid a brewing factional power struggle in the Gaza Strip in anticipation of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's planned withdrawal of troops and settlers from the occupied territory by the end of 2005.
Earlier, in the nearby town of Khan Younis in the Gaza Strip, gunmen attacked and burned down a post manned by members of a security service already controlled by Moussa Arafat, sending officers fleeing into the night.