Hamas fighters besieged two Fatah security headquarters with guns and rocket launchers on Tuesday as deadly clashes threatened to topple the government and drive Gaza closer to civil war.
Gunmen from the radical Islamist movement attacked two seats of the Fatah loyalist national security -- the main Palestinian security force -- in Gaza City and Jabaliya, sparking heavy clashes with those holed up inside.
Security officials and witnesses said Hamas gunmen quickly abandoned the fight at the Gaza City base when defenders repelled their attempts to storm it, but that fighting was continuing at the larger base in Jabaliya.
Hamas's Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades unilaterally declared "the northern Gaza Strip a closed military zone" under its control and called on members of the mainstream Fatah loyalist security forces to stay at home. Dozens of security officers loyal to Fatah laid siege to the headquarters of Hamas's Al-Aqsa television before withdrawing after Hamas fighters turned up and ripped gunfire through three of their vehicles, witnesses said.
Earlier mortar shells slammed into prime minister Ismail Haniya's home and the seafront compound of president Mahmud Abbas in the latest bout of fighting that killed two people on Tuesday, bringing the death toll to 18 ...   more »

JERUSALEM - Elder statesman Shimon Peres has been elected        Israel's next president, winning the support of 86 of parliament's 120 members in a second and final round of balloting, Channel TV reported Wednesday.  
Peres, of the ruling Kadima Party, all but clinched the race after his two rivals withdrew after the first round of voting earlier in the day.
Peres, a Nobel Peace Prize winner who has held all of Israel's top civilian posts, later advanced to a yes-or-no vote in parliament.
The ordinarily quiet contest has been closely watched because of Peres' campaign to cap his six-decade political career with a term in the president's mansion, and rape allegations against the sitting president, Moshe Katsav.
Peres, of the ruling Kadima Party, received an unexpectedly high 58 votes in parliament's secret balloting in round one. Reuven Rivlin, a lawmaker and former parliament speaker from the hawkish Likud, took 37, and legislator Colette Avital of the Labor Party, 21.
Shortly after the votes were tallied, Avital announced she would not advance to a second round, and Labor said it would throw its support to Peres, who spent most of his political career in that party.
Shortly afterward, a weeping Rivlin ...   more »