At least 11 people were killed yesterday when Hamas-run security forces clashed with a powerful local family in Gaza City, Palestinian security officials said.
The fighting, in which another 40 people were wounded, erupted when Hamas police moved to arrest three members of the Doghmush clan accused of gunning down a police officer on Monday.
The 11 people killed included at least one police officer and nine members of the Doghmush family, Islam Shahwan, a spokesman for the Hamas-run interior ministry, told reporters.
The three men the police had been searching for -- Jamil, Saeb, and Ibrahim Doghmush -- were all killed in the fighting, he said, adding that they were wanted in a "criminal case." Another 15 people were arrested.
Witnesses said they heard heavy gunfire and the blasts of rocket-propelled grenades in the city's Sabra neighbourhood, a clan stronghold, after Hamas-run forces had sealed off the area the night before.
Several members of the Doghmush clan, one of the most powerful families in the impoverished coastal strip, are suspected of belonging to the Army of Islam, a small shadowy armed group inspired by al-Qaeda.
The Army of Islam was behind the kidnapping of BBC reporter Alan Johnston in 2007 and along with Hamas and another small group claimed responsibility for the capture of an Israeli soldier in a deadly cross-border raid in 2006.
Since Hamas seized power in Gaza in June 2007 after routing forces loyal to Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas it has had tense relations with the group that have occasionally spilled over into street clashes.