GAZA CITY, Dec 28 (AFP) - All electoral
offices were re-opened Wednesday for candidates to register for next month's
Palestinian parliamentary polls after gunmen ended sieges across the Gaza
Strip, an official said.
"We have reopened all the offices,"
said a senior source in the central electoral commission (CEC), adding
that the ruling Fatah party was expected to submit a revised list of candidates
for the January election shortly.
"Gunmen have ended all sieges. There were clashes in Gaza city that left one policeman wounded. He is being treated in hospital," said the CEC source.
"Palestinian security has assured us that they will be placing more forces around all the offices and the offices are ready to receive applications from any candidates until 2:00 pm (1200 GMT) today," the source added.
Dozens of masked gunmen from Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a radical offshoot of Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas's Fatah faction, earlier surrounded a CEC office in Gaza City, witnesses said.
Dozens of other Al-Aqsa activists stormed electoral offices in the southern town of Khan Yunis and Deir el-Balah in central Gaza, and surrounded a third in the impoverished southern border town of Rafah.
As a result of the disturbances, an electoral official said offices in the Khan Yunis and Rafah were closed, along with another in Gaza City.
sa-co/jm/hc
Copyright (c) 2005 Agence France-Presse
Received by NewsEdge Insight: 12/28/2005 05:08:40