GUNMAN KILLED IN CLASHES WITH HAMAS SECURITY IN GAZA CITY

Gaza, 15 Sya’ban 1436, 2 June 2015 (MINA) –  A suspected gunman was killed by Hamas security officers in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood of Gaza City on Tuesday morning, security sources told Ma’an.

Sources said that officers arrived at the house of 27-year-old Yussef al-Hatarman with the intention of arresting him because he was keeping “illegal” weapons.

“The officers asked him to turn himself in, but he refused and threatened to blow himself up,” they said, Ma’an News Agency  reports as quoted by Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA).

They said that security officers then clashed with the gunman, “and managed to hit him before he could blow himself up.”

A spokesman at the Hamas-run Ministry of the Interior, Iyad al-Buzm, confirmed that security officers had shot an “outlaw” after he refused to turn himself in and fired gunshots at the officers.

Al-Buzm said that the “suspect” had booby-trapped the house, and that explosive belts, rocket-propelled grenades and other explosives had been found in the house.

Witnesses reported seeing an ambulance remove a second casualty from the building following the gun battle, though this was not confirmed.

Hatarman was identified as the local leader in a militant Salafist group.

Sources alleged that he had been involved in explosions carried out across the Gaza Strip in recent days, saying: “Detectives have been watching his movements.”(T/P010/R03)

Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA)