RAMALLAH, West Bank: Rival wings of President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah faction reunited yesterday to fight off a January election challenge by the militant Islamic group Hamas.

The factions submitted a joint list of candidates for the January 25 ballot hours after Fatah gunmen, demanding their own nominees run in the vote, traded gunfire with Palestinian police and shut election offices in Gaza.

"It was a good opportunity for Fatah to unite in one list agreed upon by all ... it is important now to go towards the election united," Abbas told reporters

It was not clear what effect the deal would have on the factions fighting in Gaza. Fatah officials said they hoped the decision to reunite would end bickering within the ruling party and strengthen its prospects in the parliamentary ballot against Hamas, which is running for the first time and presents a formidable challenge.

Most of the candidates appeared to be young generation Fatah leaders, who are popular on the Palestinian street and might help Fatah pull in more votes for the mainstream party.

Popular uprising leader Marwan Barghouthi, who is currently in jail in Israel, headed the list of Fatah candidates.

Divisions in Fatah between veteran leaders, a young guard led by Barghouthi seeking a bigger share of power and militants waging a 5-year-old uprising against Israel have boosted Hamas.

Few of the veterans appeared on the new list of candidates submitted to replace two separate lists issued earlier in the month, which would have split Fatah's vote, and might have lead to a Hamas victory in the polls.

But some Fatah officials indicated that there could be more turmoil ahead for Abbas's party.

"This split will remain for a very long time," said Azzam al-Ahmad, a veteran Fatah leader. "The wound has not been healed".

In Gaza, gunmen from the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades a renegade militia within Fatah, exchanged fire with police in two separate gun battles outside election offices in the Gaza Strip.

One policeman was wounded before the militants were driven off. Tense police, masked like the gunmen, patrolled near election offices.

Elsewhere in Gaza, al-Aqsa fighters forced at least three offices to close, though the electoral commission said work was resuming in some places after police restored order.

"Our voices have been lost," said Abu Zakariya, leader of the group that shut the Khan Younis office, demanding a re-run of party primaries or a postponement of the ballot itself.

Source: China Daily