By DPA
Gaza : A militant Palestinian group said Thursday that it has succeeded in putting an end to fighting between a Gaza clan and police forces loyal to the Islamic Hamas movement, which claimed five lives overnight Wednesday and left 30 people injured.
The Popular Resistance Committees (PRC), an umbrella grouping of Palestinian extremists, said in a statement that they had contacted the “sides involved” in the clashes, which broke out in the Strip late Wednesday night.
The fighting was the most serious in the Strip since mid-June, when Hamas gunmen routed security officers loyal to President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah movement, and seized control of the salient.
Hospital officials said the dead from the overnight violence included at least two members of the Fatah-affiliated Helles clan, and two police officers.
The clashes began when a group from the Helles clan opened fire on traffic police after committing a traffic offence. According to a Hamas interior ministry statement, the family refused to hand the offenders over and planned to attack police forces sent to arrest them.
Ihab al-Ghussein, a spokesman for the interior ministry of the Hamas administration in the Strip deposed by Abbas after the June fighting, confirmed the ceasefire and said the clan had to hand over all members suspected of taking part in the fighting.
Sources close to Hamas said that Ahmed Helles, a senior clan leader, had surrendered to the Hamas military wing, who in turn handed him over to the police.