Fatah gunmen stormed a mourning tent in Gaza City on Sunday evening and opened fire to protest against the presence of the PLO's Mahmoud Abbas and former security minister Muhammed Dahlan.

Two Palestinian policemen were killed in the ensuing gun battle, which lasted for more than 10 minutes. Abbas was unhurt, but his bodyguards threw him to the ground as the shooting intensified...

...PA officials expressed fear that the shooting attack would trigger internal fighting in the Gaza Strip and called for calm.

The attack occurred shortly after Abbas and Dahlan arrived at the tent to receive condolences for the death of Arafat.

Eyewitnesses said a group of 30 gunmen, clad in green and belonging to one of Fatah's splinter groups, raided the tent chanting slogans against the two, who were surrounded by dozens of armed bodyguards.

Fatah's armed wing Aksa Martyrs Brigades strongly denied responsibility for the shooting attack and called for an immediate investigation.

The gunmen who entered the tent shouted "Abbas, Dahlan, go away, you American agents." The gunmen, who were not masked, also chanted slogans in praise of Arafat.

"When they came close to Abbas, some of them opened fire from their automatic rifles," said a Palestinian journalist who was in the area.

"Then I saw a uniformed policeman lying in a pool of blood. He had been hit in the head. Another man was also shot and killed."

In addition to Abbas and Dahlan, a large number of senior Palestinian officials were inside the tent when the gun battle erupted. They included General Musa Arafat, overall commander of the National Security Forces in the Gaza Strip; General Amin al-Hindi, head of the General Intelligence; Saeb al-Ajez, commander of the Civil Police; and Nasser al-Kidwa, the PLO's representative to the UN, who is a nephew of Yasser Arafat...