Gaza truce in jeopardy as six Palestinians killed

GAZA CITY (AFP) - Six Palestinians were killed as new clashes threatened to destroy a three-day truce between warring factions Fatah and Hamas and shooting spread like wildfire through the Gaza Strip.

The trouble erupted outside the entrance to the Bureij and Nuseirat refugee camps in the heart of the territory, where a presidential guardsman loyal to Fatah was shot dead when Hamas gunmen ambushed a supply convoy from Egypt.

The man was identified as 24-year-old Ramadan al-Mushallah from Force 17, loyal to Palestinian president and Fatah leader Mahmud Abbas.

Three more presidential guard members were killed in continued fighting in Nuseirat and altogether 70 people were wounded in Gaza, medical sources said.

A woman and her child walk down the road toward the West Bank city of Ramallah

©AFP - Abbas Momani

A fifth Palestinian was killed in the northern town of Jabaliya where shooting broke out between Hamas militants and intelligence officers loyal to Fatah as violence spread elsewhere across the radicalised Gaza Strip.