[Al Arabiya Latest] The Islamist Hamas movement on Saturday protested the killing of its members by the Fatah movement in the West Bank as its own Gaza-based security forces launched an overnight campaign of arrests against Fatah.Around 2,200 women Hamas supporters protested against the West Bank-based Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas after a violent shootout Thursday night in town of Qalqilya between his police and Hamas left two Hamas members and a Palestinian policeman dead.
"No to Abbas, No to Fayyad," the women in Gaza City chanted, referring to Western-backed Prime Minister Salam Fayyad who has launched a security crackdown in the Israeli-occupied West Bank over the past several months.
The women waved green Hamas flags and held signs reading "Abbas's security forces are the bodyguards of the Zionists" and "No dialogue with arrests in the West Bank." Earlier this week six people were killed in a similar shootout.
An investigation by the Al-Haq human rights organisation published on Thursday said Hamas militants opened fire first on both occasions.