TEL AVIV, Israel, Feb. 1 (UPI) -- Gun battles between Fatah and Hamas supporters resumed Thursday in the Gaza Strip, less than three days after they concluded a cease-fire.
According to one report five people were killed and dozens were wounded.
This brings the number of Palestinians deaths in internecine fighting since Jan. 1 to almost 50.
The Meizan Center for Human Rights said 43 people were killed last month in inter-Palestinian clashes, 304 people were wounded and 99 were taken hostage. The extent of the deaths is unprecedented since the Palestinian Authority was formed, it said, according to the Maan news agency.
In an Al Najah University poll, undertaken in late Janaury, respondents were asked whether the Palestinians are witnessing a civil war. Some 53.5 percent said 'yes' while 42 percent said 'no.'
Thursday's fighting erupted when Hamas suspected that Fatah-dominated security forces received a shipment of arms from Egypt via Israel. Fatah and the Egyptians denied the report.
The Executive Force that answers to the Hamas-led government ambushed trucks that President Mahmoud Abbas' Presidential Guard accompanied. According to the Ramatan news agency, the Executive Force's men attacked the convoy with a rocket-propelled grenade and surrounded the trucks.
Fighting spread to the Ansar compound in Gaza where President Abbas of Fatah has his headquarters and the Palestinian security services that answer to Abbas are located. The Israeli Ynet news Web site said Hamas believes arms are there. Another battle raged in the northern Gaza Strip where Hamas activists tried to seize a military intelligence headquarters, Ha'aretz said.
Fatah and Hamas are locked in a power struggle that worsened following last year's parliamentary elections. Hamas won them by a landslide although a different elections system, in which every vote counts, would have left Fatah ahead.
