Dozens of gunmen stormed into Palestine Television yesterday in a show of strength against President Mahmoud Abbas in the final hours before his deadline to Hamas to accept a manifesto implicitly recognizing Israel.

Employees at a broadcasting facility in the Gazan town of Khan Younis said gunmen, whom they identified as local Hamas members, fired into equipment, smashed computers and shouted that Abbas-controlled Palestine Television favoured his Fatah faction.

Hamas, an Islamic militant group that came to power after defeating Fatah in a January election, denied responsibility. The gunmen eventually left the television office after beating up two employees, witnesses said.

"The whole place is ruined," one employee said by telephone.

Palestine Television announced it would stop broadcasting for 30 minutes later in the day to protest against the assault.

Abbas has given Hamas until noon (0900 GMT) today to embrace the manifesto, which was penned by Palestinians in Israeli jails. He has threatened to call a referendum for July if Hamas does not meet the deadline.

Hamas seeks to destroy the Jewish state and has rejected calls by Abbas and Western powers to soften its stance. The manifesto includes a clause calling for a Palestinian state alongside Israel.

"The document has to be accepted as it is. If we begin to change it, we will never reach a result," Abbas told a news conference.

With shootouts between Hamas and Fatah now frequent occurrences, many Palestinians fear further violence if Abbas schedules a referendum, a move a Hamas spokesman said would be tantamount to a coup against the elected government.

Earlier in the West Bank and Gaza, Palestinian Authority employees crowded into banks to get a month's salary in a move by the government to ease an economic crisis and bolster its public support.

After going unpaid since March, some 40,000 of the Palestinian Authority's lowest-earning workers were eligible to receive a month's salary promised by the government.

Source: China Daily