Fatah gunmen threatened on Tuesday to kill leaders of the governing Hamas group, escalating a power struggle marked by the worst internal Palestinian violence since the Palestinian Authority was created in 1994.
Twelve Palestinians have been killed and more than 100 wounded in two days of fighting between rival forces from Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah faction and Hamas in the Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank.
Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an armed wing of Fatah, said it held Hamas's Damascus-based political chief Khaled Meshaal, Interior Minister Saeed Seyam and senior Interior Ministry official Youssef al-Zahar responsible for the deaths.
"We in al-Aqsa announce, with all might and frankness, the ruling of the people in the homeland and in the diaspora, to execute the head of the sedition, Khaled Meshaal, Saeed Seyam and Youssef al-Zahar, and we will execute this ruling so those filthy people can be made an example," a statement said.
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