Gunmen raid Fatah official's home, killing five

[oberliner]

GAZA CITY (AP) -- Hamas militants unleashed a barrage of rockets at an Israeli town after a brutal day of factional fighting with Fatah rivals in Gaza that killed 15 people, confining terrified residents to their homes and raising the specter of Israel being dragged into the bloody conflict.

Renewed clashes erupted early Wednesday in Gaza City, as Hamas gunmen stormed the home of a top Fatah official, killing five of this bodyguards inside, Palestinians security officials said.

The gunmen fired mortars at the house of Fatah security chief Rashid Abu Shbak before storming it, planting pipe bombs and executing those inside, the officials said.

Witnesses reported seeing heavy smoke rising from the home of Abu Shbak. He and his family were not home at the time of the attack, but at least a dozen of his bodyguards occupied the house. Preventive security forces, which Abu Shbak used to head, were sent in for reinforcement.

Abdel Hakim Awad, a Fatah spokesman, angrily accused Hamas' leadership of the attack on Abu Shbak's house.

"All are killers from top to bottom; all are implicated," he said. "What is happening is killing in cold blood, and this is criminal."

http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/05/16/mideast.ap/index.html?section=cnn_latest