Two television employees have been taken hostage and the transmission station they worked at set on fire as a breakdown in the truce between rival Palestinian factions Hamas and Fatah left 14 people dead in Gaza.

 

Al Jazeera's Nour Odeh said an elderly woman, a teenage girl and a toddler were among those killed on Monday.

Palestine TV blamed Hamas for the raid.

 

The violence erupted on the same day that the EU resumed aid to the Palestinian government, ending a year-long economic boycott.

 

Odeh said the gun fight "began outside the hospital and extended inside the hospital ... where many of the wounded were already receiving treatment".

 

In the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiya, Jamal Abu al-Jedian, a co-founder of Fatah's al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, was killed in a Hamas assault on his house.

 

His home was attacked after a Hamas fighter was killed.
 

"Help us. They want to kill us," a woman inside the house pleaded earlier in a telephone call to a radio station.

 

Jedian's brother was also seized by Hamas fighters and was later found dead, Fatah officials said.

 

In a separate incident, at least three Palestinians were killed in a clash in a refugee camp in Gaza City.

 

 

Fayyad, right, and Kjaer signed the agreement resuming direct European assistance [AFP]

Salam Fayyad, the Palestinian finance minister, and John Kjaer, an EU Commission representative, signed the agreement to resume direct aid to the Palestinian authority.

 

The EU, one of the biggest donors to the Palestinians, suspended direct aid to the Palestinian Authority (PA) after Hamas won elections in March 2006.

 

The EU's financial assistance begins with a $5m project intended to ensure "that Palestinian taxpayers' money is spent efficiently and that all expenditures are accounted for to the highest international standards".

 

The money will be paid in instalments until June 2009 and Ernst & Young, the international accountancy firm, will provide training to the PA as part of the project.

 

Fayyad said in a statement that the EU's support would help "ensure that we work in accordance with the best international standards" and ensure Palestinian money was "legally and honestly spent".

 

 

An IMF report, published in March, said that much of the progress achieved in years prior to 2006 to strengthen the finance ministry's control over government finances and increase transparency had been lost.

 

 

But Fayyad said the PA's economic hardships would not be resolved until Israel released hundreds of million of dollars in customs duties that it has withheld since Hamas took power.

 

"We call on Israel to transfer the money as rapidly as possible," he said.

 

Israel collects the funds on behalf of the Palestinian Authority on goods routed through Israel.