A radical sheikh was among 24 people killed and 130 wounded after Hamas police stormed a Gaza mosque when he declared an Islamic emirate in the Palestinian enclave, medics said yesterday.
The shooting erupted on Friday afternoon following weekly prayers in Rafah, on the Egyptian border, and continued until dawn yesterday.
"Clashes... between Hamas and an extremist group in the southern Gaza Strip left 24 people dead and at least 130 wounded," a spokesman for the Palestinian emergency services told AFP.
Four of the wounded were considered to be "clinically dead" and many more "seriously wounded," the spokesman added.
Abdul Latif Musa, identified by an internet statement from Jund Ansar Allah (Soldiers of the Partisans of God) as its leader, was killed while fighting Hamas forces besieging his house, the interior ministry said.
Witnesses reported a number of explosions there, but it was not clear how the man died. His aide Abu Abdullah as-Suri also died in the house.
Mohammed al-Shamali, the Hamas military chief for southern Gaza, and five policemen were also listed as killed, and 10 police wounded.
A three-year-old Egyptian boy was seriously wounded by a bullet from the fighting across the border, but was said to be recovering on Saturday when the clashes died down allowing the reopening of the Gaza-Egypt border to Muslim pilgrims.
In what Hamas police insisted was a separate incident, a member of the powerful Doghmush clan - Rashid Doghmush - was shot dead in an exchange of fire with officers in Gaza City overnight.
A shadowy group named the Army of Islam linked to the clan admitted responsibility for kidnapping BBC Gaza correspondent Alan Johnston, who was seized in March 2007 and held for nearly four months.
A Hamas spokesman accused Jund Ansar Allah of colluding with elements of the Palestinian Authority security forces driven from Gaza in fierce 2007 fighting that left Hamas in control of the impoverished coastal strip.
Friday's incident was one of the most violent in Gaza since Israel's 22-day offensive over the new year.
Witnesses said that following prayers, Musa announced the formation of the emirate, defying the authority of Hamas which has ruled Gaza's 1.5 million people for the past two years.
"We are today proclaiming the creation of an Islamic Emirate in the Gaza Strip," said Musa, a 47-year-old paediatrician famed for his fiery sermons in Rafah's 'Brazil' district calling for application of Islamic sharia law.
US-based monitoring service SITE Intelligence said Jund Ansar Allah announced its allegiance to the 'Islamic Emirate in the Heart of Beit al-Maqdis (Jerusalem)' in a message on its website last Friday.
A translation of the statement declared that Abu al-Nur al-Maqdisi (Abdul Latif Musa) was the leader.
Rafah is the Gaza stronghold of the Salafist movement, to which Jund Ansar Allah is said to belong and which is ideologically close to Al-Qaeda.
Jund Ansar Allah seeks the strict enforcement of sharia law and accuses Hamas of being too liberal. It is said to have threatened to burn down internet cafés and enforce Islamic dress on Gaza beaches.
In July, the group said Hamas arrested three of its activists and charged them with planting a bomb that wounded 52 people at the wedding of a relative of Mohammed Dahlan, the Fatah former strongman in Gaza who is widely despised by Islamists in the territory for his rule of iron before 2007. The group denied any responsibility and warned of reprisals against Hamas if any of its members were killed.
On Friday evening, the Hamas interior ministry warned that law-breakers would not be tolerated.
"Everyone outside the law and carrying arms in order to spread chaos will be pursued and arrested," a ministry statement said.