Gunmen opened fire on the convoy of a Hamas government minister on Saturday, threatening to complicate talks on a Palestinian national unity government a day after prime minister-designate Ismail Haniya was given another fortnight to form it.
The incident sparked a roadside firefight in which three people were wounded, highlighting the tensions still simmering after months of deadly clashes between rival factions - even as negotiations over a landmark unity cabinet appeared to be nearing a successful conclusion.
One day ahead of his Sunday meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas extended by two weeks the deadline for Haniya to form the unity government. Abbas met in Amman on Saturday with King Abdullah II who urged both sides "to benefit from the Arab and international efforts ent", Jordan's Petra news agency said.
Hamas's exiled political supremo, Khaled Meshaal, meanwhile, visited Sanaa to brief Yemeni leaders on efforts to form a unity government. Abbas and Haniya have met several times over the past week, and Abbas said on Thursday that the government was 99 percent ready and predicted a final agreement within days.
But that was before the latest bout of violence on Saturday. The attack on the convoy of prison affairs minister Wasfi Kabha in the village of Tubas north of Nablus left one of Kabha's bodyguards injured. Two of the attackers were also injured in the shootout and another two were arrested, security sources said. A Hamas statement pointed the finger at Abbas's Fatah faction.
The attack against Kabha came as scores of Fatah supporters and intellectuals rallied in Ramallah against Hamas's decision to ban a highly regarded book of Palestinian folk tales. Palestinian law allowed Haniya three weeks to form a new cabinet after the outgoing government stepped down on February 15, but it also gives Abbas the power to extend that deadline for another two weeks.
Under the terms of the power-sharing agreement reached in Saudi Arabia last month, Hamas will occupy nine cabinet seats plus the premiership and their rivals Fatah will take six. Hamas will nominate another three "independent" ministers and Fatah two. The radical Islamist movement will also name an interior minister whose candidature must be approved by Abbas.
In Jenin, north of Nablus, meanwhile, security sources said gunmen from the Fatah-linked Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades fired shots at a security headquarters in protest at the non-payment of salaries to the families of fallen militants.