The police of the Islamic Resistance Movement, or Hamas, opened fire in the air and beat demonstrators who rallied in Gaza city on Saturday against Palestinian schism, wounding at least two people, witnesses and officials said.

Three demonstrators were also arrested, said Rabah Muhana, a leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) which group organized the rally in Gaza City.

Muhana said the police attacked the rally after participants chanted slogans calling for the unity of the Palestinians and ending a two-year-old feud between Hamas and President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah.

The police moved after thousands of Gazans chanted behind a cheerleader: "We don't want Abbas nor Haneya, we want a national unity," according to the witnesses. Haneya is the prime minister of Hamas's administration in Gaza.

The demonstrators scuffled with the forces after Hamas security men fired warning shots in the air and tried to arrest some of the PFLP supporters when the rally was near to its end.

The policemen attacked the people with sticks and used their rifle butts to disperse the crowds who rallied on the eve of the second anniversary of Hamas-Fatah bloody fighting which ended with Hamas taking over the Gaza Strip and driving pro-Abbas forces out to the West Bank.

(Xinhua News Agency June 14, 2009)