"an ever uglier and more brutal society"


Hamas fighters overran two of the rival       Fatah movement's most important security command centers in the       Gaza Strip on Thursday, and witnesses said the victors dragged vanquished gunmen into the street and shot them to death execution-style.
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A witness, who identified himself only as Amjad, said men were killed as their wives and children watched.

"They are executing them one by one," said Amjad, who lives in a building that overlooks the Preventive Security complex. "They are carrying one of them on their shoulders, putting him on a sand dune, turning him around and shooting," he said by telephone.

The killers ignored appeals from residents to spare the men's lives, said Amjad, who declined to give his full name, fearing reprisal.

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Among those killed Wednesday was a man who joined a nonviolent protest of the fighting in Gaza City. Also shot dead were two women from the Fatah-allied Bakr clan whose members had surrendered to Hamas. According to a clan member, the women tried to leave the area after the surrender to take a sick girl to a hospital and were shot on the street by jittery Hamas gunmen.

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Separately, Hamas gunmen attacked the home of a senior Fatah security official with mortars and grenades, killing his 14-year-old son and three women inside, security officials said. Other Fatah gunmen stormed the house of a Hamas lawmaker and burned it down.