Explosions hit two police checkpoints in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, killing three officers and wounding several other Palestinians, the Hamas-run Interior Ministry said, declaring a state of emergency after the blasts.
Such attacks on Hamas, which has the most powerful armed apparatus in the enclave, were rare.
Interior Ministry spokesman Eyad Al-Bozom said security forces were making progress in their pursuit of those behind the explosions, but he did not disclose further details.
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“The sinful hands that carried out this crime will not escape punishment,” said Bozom.
A spokesman for the Israeli military said he knew of no involvement by Israel in the back-to-back incidents in Gaza city at a time of simmering cross-border confrontations with Hamas, the Palestinian enclave’s ruling Islamists.
The first blast destroyed a motorcycle as it passed a police checkpoint, witnesses said. Two police officers were killed and a third Palestinian wounded. It was not immediately clear if the riders were among the casualties.
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The second explosion, less than an hour later, killed one officer and wounded several people at a police checkpoint elsewhere in the city, the Interior Ministry said. The ministry declared a state of emergency throughout Gaza, putting security forces on alert.
Hamas, which took over Gaza in a 2007 civil war with the forces of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, has at times faced internal opposition from more stringent Islamist militants aligned with al-Qaida or the Islamic State group.
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