GAZA CITY, 12 June 2005 — Palestinian Foreign Minister Nasser Al-Kidwa yesterday said the Palestinian Authority will not disarm resistance groups as long as Israel continues to occupy Palestinian land.
“The dismantling of armed organizations is not on the table because weapons are legal as long as the occupation exists,” Al-Kidwa told Palestinian television. “Possession of weapons is a strategic issue as long as there is occupation.”
Israel has long demanded that Palestinians crack down on armed groups, but Palestinian officials have chosen instead to try to co-opt them.
However, Al-Kidwa said the weapons should be organized and not used to break the law. Some of the powerful groups operate as armed gangs in Palestinian towns and cities, challenging government security forces.
Early yesterday, about 40 gunmen from various militant groups attacked a security headquarters in Gaza City, sparking a shootout with Palestinian security officers that continued sporadically for three hours. No one was injured, witnesses and security officials said.
Soon after the fighting stopped shots were fired near the Gaza house of a Palestinian security chief, Brig. Gen. Rashid Abu Shbak. No injuries were reported in that shooting either.
The shootout came two days after gunmen refused to identify themselves at a Palestinian checkpoint in Gaza, sparking a shootout with security forces that left a militant slightly injured.
The developments came after Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas held talks with armed groups in the Gaza Strip over an increasingly fragile truce that has been shaken by a recent flare-up in violence.
Al-Kidwa reaffirmed the Palestinian Authority’s will to preserve the period of calm, saying it “serves the national interest,” as long as the truce is also observed by Israel. He said Abbas’ governing Fatah movement was committed to halting attacks on civilians in Israel as well as settlers and Israeli soldiers in occupied territories.
Palestinian resistance movements Hamas and Islamic Jihad have refused to surrender their weapons.
Meanwhile, Abbas has agreed to free Jihad activists jailed for a bomb attack in Tel Aviv. “We agreed with the Palestinian leader during our latest meeting in Gaza on releasing the nine Islamic Jihad prisoners in Jericho,” said Khaled Al-Batsh, a top Jihad leader in Gaza City.
“Two of these prisoners were already released and the rest will be released tomorrow,” he said. The activists were jailed after a bomb attack at a Tel Aviv night club in February killed five Israelis and was claimed by Islamic Jihad.
Meanwhile, some 40 Palestinians marched through the streets of Ramallah calling for an end to corruption and chaos in the Palestinian Authority and protesting the recent decision to postpone legislative elections, which had been set for July.
— Additional input from agencies
