Masked Palestinian gunmen blew up a vacant resort in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, claiming they belonged to al Qaeda and that the holiday site is owned by Fatah leader Mohammed Dahlan, its manager said.
"They destroyed the large wedding and conference room with several huge bombs. They planted bombs in some of the rooms, destroying the southern part of the resort," Bashir Thari, manager of the al-Waha complex, told Reuters.
According to Thari, some 40 gunmen, masked and heavily armed, participated in the attack and abducted, but later freed, three guards. "They asked them whether the resort belonged to Dahlan," Thari told Reuters. "The guards said 'no, al-Waha belongs to a Palestinian businessman, not to Dahlan.'"
He said the gunmen told the guards: "Al Qaeda has arrived in Gaza and we will destroy every place owned by Dahlan and bomb him, too."
Meanwhile, a bomb exploded late Monday evening at the Gaza Strip offices of the Arabic-language satellite news channel al-Arabiya after it reported last week that Hamas leader and Palestinian PM Ismail Haniyeh had cursed God.
The explosion caused extensive damage to the property of the Saudii-owned TV channel, though no ijuries were reported.
Hamas officials said Haniyeh's comments that "Even if God sets conditions for us, we will reject this," were taken out of context, and that Haniyeh had in fact been quoting a Fatah official during an interview with Hizbullah's al-Manar station. Hamas also claimed that al-Arabiya has deliberately singled Haniyeh in the broadcast.
Many Hamas supporters accuse the news channel of promoting American and Israeli interests rather than Palestinian ones, and refer to the station as 'al-Ibriya', meaning 'the Hebraic' in Arabic instead of 'the Arab' (channel).
The Hamas-led government had demanded that the station apologize for the broadcast, though such calls were ignored.
© 2007 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
