GAZA, 13 October 2004 — Palestinian security chief Moussa Arafat survived an assassination attempt as his convoy left a security compound in Gaza City yesterday, a website run by his son said.
“Maj.-Gen. Moussa Arafat, head of Public Security in the Gaza Strip, survived an assassination attempt by unknown assailants,” the Al-Maddar website said shortly after the explosion.
A car bomb exploded outside Palestinian security headquarters in Gaza City late yesterday in what witnesses said appeared to be an assassination attempt against a top security official.
A car parked on the roadside blew up just as the convoy of Moussa Arafat, head of general security in the Gaza Strip, was pulling out of the compound in the center of Gaza City, witnesses said.
Thick smoke filled the air from the burning remains of the gutted car, while one person was lightly injured by shrapnel, witnesses and medical sources said.
Palestinian sources said they believed the attack was the result of internal unrest in Gaza, and did not involve Israel, which has been conducting a massive military offensive in the northern Gaza Strip that has killed more than 110 people.
There was no immediate comment from Palestinian security officials who sealed off the area to carry out an investigation into the explosion.
An Israeli military source denied any involvement, saying the blast “was not related to any IDF (Israel Defense Forces) activity”.
Moussa Arafat, a nephew of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, was appointed head of the Palestinian general security service in July, prompting angry outbursts from militant groups who branded him a symbol of corruption and warned the controversial appointment would lead to “internal conflict”.
Israel’s massive military onslaught in the northern Gaza Strip entered its third week yesterday with the death toll topping 110 and scenes of utter devastation in the territory’s largest refugee camp. The situation in Jabaliya camp, home to some 104,000 refugees, remained tense, with sporadic gunfire from Israeli tanks sending the Palestinian population ducking for shelter.
Israeli Army bulldozers continued to level citrus groves and houses in the northern sector of the camp. A drive through the squalid streets of the densely populated camp, with Israeli drones circling ominously overhead, reveals a mass of humanity. Donkey carts compete on the road with dented old Mercedes and newer Asian imports. Barefoot children play in the sandy pavements and rubbish-strewn gutters. “Israel moved into Jabaliya and some people have been forced to fight back,” said Dr. Manar Al-Farra, director of the camp’s Al-Awdah Hospital.
“We are expecting more casualties at any time,” said Farra, dodging instinctively behind a pillar after a bullet whizzes past an open hospital window overlooking a working Israeli bulldozer and a tank just 100 meters away. Farra has signed the death certificates of 26 people since Israel’s so-called “Operation Days of Penitence” was launched a fortnight ago in a bid to halt rocket attacks on southern Israel. Six of those fatalities were children. “Injured casualties come in like burned pieces of steak,” he told AFP.
In a statement issued after its weekly meeting yesterday, the Palestinian Cabinet criticized “the international silence in the face of the continuous Israeli aggression in northern Gaza and the rest of the Palestinian areas which encourages Israel to continue its plans to ... swallow up the West Bank.”
Health NGO Medicines du Monde also lashed Israel over the offensive, accusing the Jewish state of using heavy weaponry against civilians and blocking humanitarian and medical aid reaching the area. “There has been a considerable usage by the Israeli Army of armed vehicles and planes. Missiles have frequently been used to target vehicles, buildings and people,” the French agency said in a statement.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, keen to deliver a decisive blow to Gaza-based militant factions before next year’s planned pullout, has ordered the continuation of the operation despite the reported reservations of some senior officers.
Sharon launched new efforts yesterday to widen his shaky coalition after a stinging setback in Parliament that complicated his plan to withdraw from some occupied territory. A 53-44 vote to reject Sharon’s speech opening a new session of Parliament on Monday was only symbolic.
