Gunmen Set Fire To Palestinian PM's Office
Julie Farby - All Headline News Staff Writer Ramallah, West Bank (AHN)-Gunmen set fire to the Palestinian prime minister's office on Monday as clashes escalated between his Islamist Hamas followers and President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah movement. The Ramallah office of Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh in the West Bank was unoccupied at the time. According to the Reuters report, Hamas and Abbas have been involved in an intensifying power struggle since the Islamists took over the government after beating Fatah in January elections. Tensions have been heightened further since Abbas called a referendum on a manifesto for Palestinian statehood that implicitly recognizes Israel. Parliament had convened to consider a motion by Hamas to declare the referendum illegal. Meanwhile, the internal fighting follows a sharp surge in Israeli-Palestinian violence along the Gaza frontier and a declaration by Hamas that a 16-month-old truce with the Jewish state had ended.
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