Palestinian gunmen from President Mahmoud Abbas's ruling Fatah party stormed election offices and battled police in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday in a flare-up of violence that could disrupt next month's parliamentary ballot.
The violence prompted the Central Elections Committee to close all its offices in the West Bank and Gaza. Employees would not return to work until the Interior Ministry provided them with security, the Palestinian official news agency reported.
About 100 al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades gunmen fired in the air as they burst into election headquarters in Gaza City shortly before rival Hamas militants were expected to register their candidate lists for the vote, election officials said.
At the same time, gunmen raided election offices in the West Bank city of Nablus, and in Rafah and Khan Younis in southern Gaza. There were heavy clashes with police in Khan Younis but no immediate reports of casualties.
The Hamas leader in Gaza, Mahmoud al-Zahar, suggested members of Fatah wanted to postpone the parliamentary showdown. "We will not accept a delay, because it is clear that somebody fears the results of the election and this (violence) is one of the moves already anticipated," he was quoted as saying by a pro-Hamas Web site.
Abbas condemned the violence, and called for urgent measures to restore calm. He has struggled to impose order in Gaza, seen as a testing ground for Palestinian statehood, since Israeli troops withdrew following 38 years of occupation.
The gunmen, who smashed desks and computers in the offices, threatened to prevent the elections from taking place unless Fatah conducted a repeat of primaries it halted in areas where the voting was tainted by fraud allegations and violence.