Clashes in Gaza City between Hamas and clan members leave 27 dead

At least 27 people have been killed in fierce clashes between Hamas security forces and armed members of the Dughmush family in Gaza City, in one of the most violent internal clashes since the end of major Israeli operations in the enclave.

Masked Hamas gunmen exchanged fire with clan fighters near the city’s Jordanian hospital, witnesses said.

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

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

Eyewitnesses said clashes broke out in the southern Gaza City neighborhood of Tel al-Hawa after a Hamas force of more than 300 fighters moved to storm a residential block where Dughmush gunmen were holed up.

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

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

The Dughmush family, one of Gaza’s most prominent clans, 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-led Interior Ministry said its forces were trying to restore order, warning that “any armed activity outside the framework of the resistance” would be dealt with firmly.

Both sides exchanged accusations about who was responsible for triggering the clashes.

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

However, a Dughmush family source told local media that Hamas forces had reached a building that once served as the Jordanian Hospital, where the family had taken refuge after their homes in the al-Sabra neighborhood were destroyed in the recent Israeli attack.

The source claimed that Hamas attempted to evict the family from the building to establish a new base for its forces there.

Hamas has withdrawn some 7,000 members of its security forces to reassert control over areas of Gaza recently vacated by Israeli troops, according to local sources.

Reports suggest that armed Hamas units have already been deployed in several districts, some dressed in civilian clothes and others in blue Gaza police uniforms. Hamas’s press office denied that it was deploying “fighters on the streets.”