Gaza (Palestinian Territories) (AFP)

The Gaza Strip was "in a state of alarm" on Wednesday after bombings in which at least three policemen were killed, reinforcing tensions in the Hamas-led, Israeli-controlled Palestinian enclave.

"The security services in Gaza have at hand the first information about this heinous crime and their perpetrators and continue their investigations to establish the exact circumstances (...) of these bombings," said the Ministry of Interior in Gaza, adding that the enclave was in "state of alert".

The authorities, who had been talking about indiscriminate "explosions" in the night, reported that two to three people were killed in police attacks against police checkpoints in Gaza City. three wounded.

Witnesses told AFP that these were suicide attacks by motorcycle suicide bombers. The Interior Ministry has not confirmed this information, but according to a source close to the investigation, "the suspicions weigh on the side of Salafists".

These would be the first suicide bombings in the Palestinian enclave in more than two years.

According to the Interior Ministry, two policemen were killed and another person injured in Tal al-Hawa neighborhood in Gaza City. In the second attack, a policeman was killed and two people injured on a road along the sea in the same city.

AFP journalists have noted a heightened presence of Hamas men on the main axes of the Palestinian enclave, wedged between Israel, Egypt and the Mediterranean.

"The attacks are aimed at undermining Gaza's stability and serve only Israel's interests," Hamas political bureau chief Ismael Haniyeh said.

"We are asking people to rally behind our security services and support them in order to restore order," he said in a statement.

The three dead policemen, considered as "martyrs" by Hamas, are Salama Majid al-Nadim, 32, Wael Moussa Mohammed Khalifa, 45, and Alaa Ziad al-Gharabli, 32, the Gazan ministry said. Their funerals are scheduled for Wednesday afternoon.

- Tensions -

The latest suicide bombing in the Gaza Strip took place on August 17, 2017, when a suicide bomber blew himself up at a Hamas checkpoint in the southern part of the country, near the border with Egypt. The movement had then arrested dozens of suspected Salafists.

Hamas, an Islamist movement of the Muslim Brotherhood that exercises unchallenged power over the Gaza Strip, has for years been confronted with the challenge represented by the Salafist movement, and in particular the jihadists within it.

The latest attacks come as a series of rocket fire followed by Israeli retaliation, as well as clashes on the border, are feared since mid-August escalation between armed movements in Gaza and Israel, in the run-up to parliamentary elections September 17th.

The Israeli authorities have accused Hamas Islamists of being responsible for the violence that undermines a UN-brokered truce agreement and provides for a reduction of the Israeli blockade on Gaza in exchange for the end of military operations since then. the enclave.

Specifically, the Israeli army accuses Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, of not doing enough to contain its Islamic Jihad ally.

The Interior Ministry in Gaza did not say whether the night's attacks were linked to possible tensions between Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

Meanwhile, after new rocket bursts from Gaza to Israel this weekend, the Israeli authorities halved supplies of fuel to Gaza, essential to power the only power station in the Palestinian enclave that is under Israeli blockade. .

© 2019 AFP