Unknown gunmen in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip abducted a senior adviser to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Friday, AbbasÂ’s Fatah faction said. It was the highest-profile abduction since Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip in June after routing secular Fatah forces. Tensions between Hamas and Fatah remain high in Gaza, where an explosion hit a funeral procession for three militants killed in an Israeli air strike on Thursday. Medical officials said at least two mourners died and 35 were wounded in FridayÂ’s funeral blast. Hamas security sources said a gunman appeared to have accidentally dropped a hand grenade into the crowd. Fatah said Omar al-Ghoul was taken from his home in Gaza one day after he arrived in the coastal territory from the occupied West Bank.
Information Minister, Riyad al-Malki, blamed “criminals working for Hamas” for the abduction and called for Ghoul’s immediate release. “Hamas and all of its parties are responsible for his life.” Malki said the abduction was a message to Fatah leaders that “Gaza is closed to them”.
Hamas denied any involvement and said its forces were investigating the incident. No group has claimed responsibility.
Grenade wounds 20: Around 20 Palestinians, including children, were wounded on Friday when a grenade ripped through a Gaza funeral for a man killed in an Israeli air raid, witnesses and a medical official said.
The funeral was attended by dozens of supporters of Fatah, the moderate Palestinian political power to which the dead man belonged and was routed by the radical movement Hamas in an armed takeover in Gaza six months ago. A mourner said, “someone fired a grenade into the crowd”. Some of the casualties were in a serious condition, the medic said. Nasser Khalil al-Masaari was killed on Thursday when an Israeli aircraft fired a missile at the taxi in which he was travelling. Palestinian officials said an Islamic Jihad fighter, who got into the taxi after firing rockets against Israel, was the target of the strike. The Jihad operative, Masaari and another person was killed in the air strike in eastern Gaza City on Thursday evening. Israel regularly carries out air and ground operations against militants in Gaza in an effort to curb the ongoing rocket fire against southern Israel.
An Israeli woman was wounded on Thursday when a rocket slammed into a house in the town of Sderot, which has borne the brunt of the Palestinian fire.