Rafah, Gaza Strip - A fierce gunfight between Hamas police and a pro-al-Qaeda group in the southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah left five people dead and 20 wounded Friday afternoon, medical officials at the town's al-Najr hospital said.

The clash began after Dr Abdel Latif Moussa, the leader of the pro-al-Aqeda Jihad Salafi group, announced at Friday prayers at a Rafah mosque that his group had declared a theocratic Islamic emirate in the Gaza Strip.

Dozens of group members, masked and brandishing AK-47 assault rifles, took up position outside the mosque and after the prayers had ended, exchanged fire with members of the police force of the Islamic Hamas movement which administers the Gaza Strip.

Witnesses said they heard "intensive" gunfire and explosions around the Ibn Tahmeh mosque.

Doctors at al-Najr hospital said three of the injured were in serious condition. Two of the dead were members of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, the armed wing of the secular Fatah movement, who had come to help the Hamas police root out the pro-al-Qaeda group. The other three fatalities belonged to the Jihad Salafi.

Moussa was believed still holed up in the mosque, which was surrounded by Hamas police. His associates have threatened to take bloody revenge on Hamas if he is harmed.(dpa)