AFP - Fifty-two people were wounded in Hamas-run Gaza after a blast ripped through a wedding of a relative of Mohammed Dahlan, an ex-strongman with the rival Fatah group, officials said on Wednesday.
   
The explosion came late on Tuesday under a street stage set up in the southern town of Khan Yunis for the marriage of Dahlan's nephew, Mahmud, Palestinian medics said. Dahlan himself was not present at the festivities.
   
The blast wounded 52 people, among them women and children, and five were still listed in critical condition on Wednesday morning. The groom was among those badly hurt.
   
Ihab al-Ghussein, a spokesman for the Hamas-run interior ministry in the coastal territory, said the preliminary results of an investigation showed the explosion was caused by what he described as "a sound bomb."
   
He added that three people had been arrested.
   
Dahlan, the hated one-time chief of Gaza's powerful preventative security force, fled the Palestinian territory in June 2007 after the Islamist Hamas seized power there, ousting forces loyal to secular Fatah.
   
Over two decades, Dahlan has earned the hatred of Hamas for his efforts to keep the Islamists in check on behalf of Fatah.
   
A native of the Gaza Strip, Dahlan became head of the territory's powerful preventative security forces in 1994 when he returned at the start of Palestinian self-rule following the 1993 Oslo accords.
   
During his subsequent seven years in the post, he was repeatedly criticised by human rights groups for the methods his men used to crack down on Islamic militants.
   
A Fatah deputy, Dahlan has been based in the occupied West Bank's town of Ramallah since the Gaza rout.