Clashes in Gaza, West Bank

President Mahmoud Abbas's security forces fired on a Hamas rally in the West Bank and gun battles between the two Palestinian factions erupted in Gaza yesterday, prompting a Hamas leader to accuse Mr Abbas of starting a war.

Tensions reached their highest in a decade, fuelling fears the Palestinians were on the verge of civil war after months of failed talks to form a unity government between the ruling Hamas Islamist faction and Mr Abbas's once-dominant Fatah.

"What a war, Mahmoud Abbas, you are launching, first against God, and then against Hamas," Khalil al-Hayya, head of the Hamas faction in Parliament, told 100,000 supporters at a rally in Gaza City.

Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas urged "national unity" in a speech to the crowd but did not explicitly call for calm as he has during previous surges in internal fighting. At least 32 Hamas supporters in the West Bank city of Ramallah were wounded by gunfire from Mr Abbas's forces, hospital officials said. Several were in critical condition after the fiercest fighting in the occupied West Bank since Hamas came to power in March after trouncing Fatah in elections.

The violence broke out after Hamas, which controls the Palestinian Authority, accused a Fatah strongman and Mr Abbas's presidential guard of trying to kill Mr Haniyeh outside the Rafah border crossing with Egypt late on Thursday.

Israel's decision, with US backing, to prevent Mr Haniyeh entering Gaza with $35 million in cash intensified the standoff during which Mr Haniyeh's convoy came under fire.

Israel, the United States and the European Union regard Hamas as a terrorist organisation and cut off direct aid to the Palestinian government after the group rejected demands to recognise the Jewish state and renounce violence.

"We know who opened fire (on Mr Haniyeh's convoy) and they will be punished hard. From now on they will never relax and they will never sleep tight in their homes," said Foreign Minister Mahmoud al-Zahar of Hamas.