Palestinian presidential guard thrown off Gaza building

GAZA CITY: A member of Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas s presidential guard was thrown off the roof of an 18-storey building on Sunday by Hamas members in central Gaza, medical and security sources said. Mohammed Suwerki was kidnapped near the seafront in Gaza moments before he was flung to his death from the roof of the multi-storey building which has been occupied for some days by fighters from the Islamist Hamas movement, the sources said. A Hamas member was killed in the southern town of Rafah as militants from the rival factions continued to exchange fire across the Gaza Strip on Sunday, security sources said. At least three people, believed to involve both Hamas and Fatah members, were also abducted across the densely populated coastal strip. The Palestinian internecine violence resumed last Thursday after three weeks of relative calm that followed a May 19 ceasefire deal with Egyptian mediators, drawing a line under a previous spate of clashes between Fatah and Hamas militants in which more than 50 people died.