(Raises death toll to 11, paragraphs 2,13) By Nidal al-Mughrabi GAZA, Aug 3 (Reuters) - About 30 pro-Fatah Palestinians who fled to Israel after fierce clashes in the Gaza Strip were sent back to the Hamas-controlled enclave on Sunday and the Islamist group said its forces immediately detained them. They were among 180 supporters of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah faction granted refuge in Israel on Saturday after 11 Palestinians were killed and more than 90 wounded during a Hamas assault on their Gaza City neighbourhood. Several other Palestinians who fled the Gaza Strip will be brought later on Sunday to the West Bank city of Ramallah, where Abbas's government is based, Fatah sources said. The fighting in Gaza, part of a crackdown by Hamas after a July 25 bombing that killed five of its armed members and a girl, was the bloodiest since the group routed its secular rivals and took over the coastal enclave more than a year ago. Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said dozens of those who fled the fighting returned to the Gaza Strip and were detained. The 30 men sent back to Gaza are pro-Fatah members of the Helles clan, who were criticised by Fatah officials in the West Bank for failing to resist Hamas's takeover in June 2007. A spokesman for Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak said Abbas had asked Israel to send the men back to Gaza. The wounded would stay in Israel for treatment and the rest would be returned to the Gaza Strip, he said. Abbas, speaking in Amman, called for Egyptian-brokered dialogue with Hamas. "We disagree and we fight with each other," Abbas said, according to the official Palestinian WAFA news agency. "We don't have any choice. We have to reduce the gap between us and the Hamas movement." Fatah's Hussein Al-Shaikh, the senior civil affairs official in the Palestinian Authority, said only: "We are discussing with the Israelis how to allow the people to return to Gaza." HUNT FOR BOMBERS Saturday's fighting erupted when Hamas forces surrounded the Shejaia district of Gaza City to arrest 11 suspected bombers. Among them was Zaki Assakni, a Fatah man on the run who Hamas says co-planned the July 25 bomb blast, as well as others that targeted its headquarters in the Gaza Strip, a Hamas security official said. Assakni had taken refuge in the Helles clan's "security compound", the official said, adding that Hamas security forces had discovered weapons and explosives workshops there as well as a training base for clan fighters and Fatah fugitives. An official at Israel's Barlizai hospital near the Gaza Strip said 11 Fatah members from Gaza were being treated there. Nine clan members were killed on Saturday, and two died of their wounds on Sunday, medical and human rights officials said. Atef Helles, one of the wounded, told Reuters television from his hospital bed: "Hamas raided our family, burnt our houses and terrified our children. That's why we ran from Gaza. "They (Hamas) wanted some people from this area but we refused to hand them over," he said. "They attacked the area and fired rockets and grenades at us. Many were killed and wounded." Hamas gunmen fired at the Helles clansmen as they came through the Nahal Oz crossing into Israel on Saturday, Colonel Ron Ashov, commander of Israeli forces there, told Army Radio. The latest episode appeared to strengthen Hamas's grip on the Gaza Strip without endangering its ceasefire with Israel. Abbas, whose Fatah faction lost Palestinian legislative elections to Hamas in 2006, still holds sway in the West Bank, bolstered by funds from the United States and other donors. (Additional reporting by Ali Sawafta in Ramallah and Haitham Tamimi in Hebron) (Writing by Ari Rabinovitch; editing by Alistair Lyon and Tim Pearce)
Israeli soldiers escort a blindfolded Palestinian boy, who fled to Israel from Gaza, at a military base near Kibbutz Nahal-Oz, just outside the Gaza Strip August 3, 2008. About 30 pro-Fatah ...
