Israel sent 75 pro-Fatah Palestinians who fled the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip to the West Bank today after reversing a decision to return them to the coastal enclave of Gaza.
An Israeli Prison Authority spokeswoman said the Palestinians were driven on two buses from the southern Israeli city of Beersheba to the West Bank town of Jericho near the border with Jordan.
Israel estimated that 180 members of the Helles clan, one of the most powerful Gaza families associated with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's secular Fatah faction, sought refuge in Israel on Saturday after a fierce assault by Hamas on their Gaza City neighbourhood.
Israel sent dozens of them back to the Gaza Strip yesterday, citing a request from Mr Abbas and Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad.
"Israeli authorities halted the process, however, as they received information that they were being arrested by Hamas and that their lives were in immediate danger," the Israeli army said in a statement. Some of the Palestinians remain in an Israeli hospital.
The tug-of-war over the Helles clan underscored lingering resentment within Fatah more than a year after Hamas routed Mr Abbas's faction and violently seized control of the Gaza Strip.
Many Fatah leaders in the occupied West Bank still blame members of the Helles clan, one of the most heavily armed in the Gaza Strip, for not resisting Hamas's takeover in June 2007.
The Israeli army initially said it had planned to transport members of the Helles clan to the West Bank city of Ramallah, where Mr Abbas's government is based.
But Israel said later that they would be taken instead to Jericho, a desert oasis.
Hamas said it carried out the raid on the Helles compound on Saturday to detain men it accused of carrying out a July 25th bombing that killed five Hamas members and a girl.
Eleven Palestinians were killed and more than 90 were wounded during the raid in the fiercest fighting since Hamas's takeover of the Gaza Strip in June 2007.
Reuters