RAMALLAH, West Bank, 30 September 2004 — Lawmakers angered by the Palestinian leadership’s failure to make reforms plan to force a parliamentary no-confidence vote that could bring down the government appointed by Yasser Arafat.
The lawmakers said yesterday they had collected enough signatures on a petition to compel a special session, possibly by early October, on the future of Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qorei and his Cabinet.
Such a move would put increased pressure on Arafat, who in recent months has faced unprecedented unrest in the most serious challenge to his rule since he returned from exile a decade ago.
Rebellious members of the Palestinian president’s own ruling Fatah movement said Qorei’s Cabinet had shown itself to be weak and ineffective and had been undercut by Arafat’s failure to follow through on promised anti-corruption and security reforms.
“The government must be brought down, it has done nothing,” lawmaker Ahmad El-Deek told Reuters. “We have given it a chance to make reforms and implement its program, but it has taken absolutely no action.”
Parliament is due to meet after Oct. 7.
Lebanon Camp Fighting
At least one man was killed and another wounded in a gunfight between Palestinian factions in Lebanon’s largest refugee camp yesterday, witnesses said.
They said the fighting erupted when members of one of several Islamist groups in the camp, Jund Al-Sham, opened fire on an official of Fatah group and killed his bodyguard.
One Islamist fighter was shot in the clash, they said. Fatah gunmen then fired rocket-propelled grenades at the residence of an Islamist leader before storming and burning it, they said.
The fighting was the latest flare-up of violence between Islamists and the mainstream factions led by Fatah that have effective control of the camp, which Lebanese forces do not enter.
Lebanese officials call the camp, one of 12 in which some 350,000 Palestinians are registered as refugees, a haven for organized crime and fugitives from the Lebanese justice system.
