Triple blasts kill 3, wound several in Gaza

A bomb exploded at a major junction in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip on Friday, killing two Palestinians and wounding several others, Hamas and medical officials said.

They said the bomb had been planted near a place where Hamas police cars park, but that there were no officers present during the detonation. The dead -- one of them a girl -- and wounded were passers-by on their way to the beach, the medical officials said.

The attack was the third of its kind on Friday, making for one of the biggest flare-ups in internal violence since Hamas routed the forces of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's secular Fatah faction to seize control of Gaza a year ago.

Two other bomb attacks

Earlier in the day one person was killed and four others were wounded when a bomb exploded outside a Gaza City cafe that had already been targeted two months ago, emergency services and police said.

The blast, shortly after midnight, caused extensive damage to the cafe.

There was no indication why it was targeted. However, Islamic extremists have waged a campaign against Internet cafes, shops that sell music deemed unsuitable and Christian institutions in the overwhelmingly Muslim Gaza Strip.

"There are indications" Friday's attack was carried out by these extremists, but "nothing has been confirmed," police spokesman Islam Shahwan told AFP.

Separately, Shahwan said a bomb had exploded near the home of Marwan Abu Ras, the Hamas official responsible for publishing fatwas, or religious edicts, in Gaza. No one was hurt.

Shahwan said two members of the Fatah party of Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas had been arrested, and that one of them had placed the bomb.

The Islamist Hamas movement seized control of Gaza from forces loyal to Abbas after more than a week of deadly fighting in June 2007.