Clashes in Gaza City between Hamas and clan members result in 27 deaths

At least 27 people were killed in violent clashes between Hamas security forces and armed members of the Dugmush family in Gaza City, in one of the bloodiest internal confrontations since the end of major Israeli operations in the Strip.

Witnesses said that masked Hamas gunmen exchanged fire with tribal fighters near the Jordanian Hospital in the city.

A senior official in the Hamas-run Interior Ministry said that security units surrounded them and engaged in fierce fighting to arrest them. The ministry said that eight of its members were killed in “an armed attack launched by a militia.”

Medical sources said that 19 members of the Dughmush clan and eight Hamas fighters were killed since the fighting began on Saturday.

Eyewitnesses said that the clashes broke out in the Tal al-Hawa neighborhood, south of Gaza City, after a Hamas force of more than 300 fighters moved to storm a residential building in which Dughmush gunmen were holed up.

Residents described scenes of panic as dozens of families fled their homes under heavy gunfire, many of whom were displaced several times during the war.

“This time people were not fleeing Israeli attacks,” one resident said. “They were running away from their own people.”

The Dughmush family, one of the most prominent clans in Gaza, has long had a tense relationship with Hamas, and its armed members have clashed with the group on several occasions in the past.

The Hamas-run Interior Ministry said its forces were seeking to restore order, warning that “any armed activity outside the framework of resistance” would be dealt with firmly.

The two sides exchanged accusations about who was responsible for provoking the clashes.

Hamas said earlier that gunmen from Dughmush killed two of its fighters and wounded five others, prompting the movement to launch an operation against them.

However, a source from the Daghmush family told local media that Hamas forces came to a building that was previously used as a Jordanian hospital, where the family took refuge after their homes in the Sabra neighborhood were destroyed in the recent Israeli attack.

The source claimed that Hamas sought to evacuate the family from the building in order to establish a new base for its forces there.

Hamas summoned about seven thousand members of its security forces To regain control of the areas of Gaza from which Israeli forces recently withdrew, according to local sources.

Reports indicate that armed units affiliated with Hamas have already deployed in several areas, some wearing civilian clothes and others wearing the blue uniform of the Gaza Police. Hamas’s media office denied deploying “fighters in the streets.”