JERUSALEM, 25 July 2004 — Palestinian President Yasser Arafat faced a new challenge in the Gaza Strip yesterday as gunmen took over the governor’s office in Khan Younis demanding the veteran Palestinian leader sack his cousin Moussa as Gaza security chief and reinstate officers who had been fired.
The police station in Al-Zawaida, a village near Deir Al-Balah, was burned to the ground by unidentified assailants. There were no reports of casualties and no immediate claim of responsibility.
And Israeli troops destroyed six Palestinian homes in the Rafah refugee camp, in southern Gaza, Palestinian security sources said, recalling a massive demolition operation that sparked international outrage.
A member of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades told AFP by telephone from the governor’s office that the gunmen were demanding the departure of Moussa Arafat and the reinstatement of more than 50 security officers.
Fighters in the Brigades, an armed offshoot of Arafat’s Fatah group, have associated themselves with the violent protests in Gaza for the past two weeks against Arafat’s appointment of Moussa, accused of being corrupt, as the territory’s security chief.
But yesterday, the West Bank faction of the Brigades dissociated the group from the protests in the Strip and accused unnamed elements of “knowingly fomenting a crisis in Gaza in order to make the American-Zionist plan succeed”, implying that their group was being framed for the violence.
The Brigades are divided into dozens of smaller armed groups scattered across the West Bank and Gaza, answering to local chiefs.
Yesterday’s statement, which runs counter to Brigades statements from Gaza, was authenticated by top officials of the group in the north of the West Bank. It said the Brigades have “nothing to do, from either up close or afar, with these suspicious acts” in Gaza.
Meanwhile in a twist to the political maneuvering which saw Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qorei offer his resignation last week, Arafat yesterday denied that there was any power struggle between him and his premier.
Qorei “has my entire confidence and there is no problem over prerogatives,” the Palestinian leader said.
He added: “I will accept everything that Qorei asks, but up to now he has not presented any specific demands to me.”
Qorei has been seeking more control over the security services, over which Arafat has insisted on maintaining an iron grip.
At the governor’s office, witnesses earlier said some 20 armed and masked men forced everyone out of the building in the early morning and took control of it.
Palestinian security sources said the gunmen ended their five-hour siege at about noon after an agreement was reached for the security officers to return to work.
Earlier, a Brigades member, who identified himself as Abu Ahmed, listed their demands as “the reforms demanded by the Palestinian people, (that) corrupt officials be fired and (that) the nomination of Moussa Arafat be canceled.”
Palestinian Negotiations Minister Saeb Erekat warned Friday that the Palestinian territories were sliding into “chaos.”
In Rafah, a pair of Israeli bulldozers backed by tanks smashed apart six houses and damaged several others in the refugee camp’s “G Block,” the security sources said.
The United Nations’ agency for Palestinian refugees UNRWA said about 10 families totaling 50 people had been left homeless.
In May, 298 buildings were demolished and almost 3,800 people made homeless in Rafah in the biggest and deadliest army offensive in the Gaza Strip since the September 2000 launch of the Palestinian uprising, according to the United Nations.
“Operation Rainbow” was only part of a string of raids into Rafah which the Israeli military has said are aimed at smashing tunnels used to smuggle in weapons from under the border with Egypt.
A Palestinian security source also said some 2,000 Palestinians, including children and the elderly, have been stuck on the Egyptian side of the Rafah border since Israel closed it eight days ago. The Palestinians are being sheltered in a waiting room.
Israeli military sources said troops detained five wanted Palestinians overnight in the West Bank, but did not identify them or give further details. Jewish settlers are planning to form a “human chain” today stretching some 90 kilometers from the Gaza Strip to Jerusalem and called at the weekend for thousands of Israelis to take part.
— Additional input from agencies
