GAZA CITY — Street clashes erupted in the Gaza Strip on Friday in the wake of the militant Islamist group Hamas' overwhelming victory in Palestinian parliamentary elections, raising the specter of a wider outbreak of violence during the coming transition of power.
Thousands of activists from the defeated Fatah movement torched cars outside the Palestinian parliament building in the center of Gaza City, fired shots into the air and chanted angry slogans denouncing their own leaders, whom they blame for the party's stunning loss after four decades of unchallenged rule.
Fatah-linked gunmen also marched menacingly past Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' villa in Gaza City, but he was not there at the time. He has remained at his West Bank headquarters in Ramallah since Wednesday's elections, which sent shock waves through the region and has imperiled prospects for the creation of a Palestinian state.
Abbas spoke to reporters Friday, saying he would ask Hamas, as the holder of the majority of the parliamentary seats, to form a government, but gave no timetable for his request.
"We are consulting and in contact with all the Palestinian groups, and definitely, at the appropriate time, the biggest party will form the Cabinet," Abbas said.
In a confrontation Friday near the town of Khan Yunis in the south of Gaza, loyalists from Fatah and Hamas faced off in a battle that escalated from stone-throwing to an exchange of gunfire. Three people were reported injured.
The clashes were neither as large nor lethal as other episodes of unrest that have gripped Gaza in recent months since Israeli forces withdrew. But Friday's tumult boded ill for a peaceful handover of governance by Fatah -- with all the material privileges it affords -- to Hamas.
The Palestinian Authority, until now controlled by Fatah, has tens of thousands of men under arms in the various branches of its security forces. In addition, hundreds of rogue gunmen of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade also consider themselves Fatah loyalists but routinely use force and intimidation to demand jobs and other perquisites.
Public anger about corruption within the Palestinian Authority was a prime factor in Hamas' victory, but many observers are warning that those who accumulated wealth and privilege under Fatah's auspices are unlikely to give it up without a fight.
