GAZA CITY, 14 October 2004 — A failed assassination of a top security official here was a stark reminder of the uphill battle faced by Palestinian authorities in resolving the security chaos in Gaza ahead of a planned Israeli pullout.
There were scenes of mayhem outside Palestinian security headquarters in Gaza City late Tuesday after car bomb exploded in an apparent bid to kill Moussa Arafat, head of general security in the territory and a relative of veteran Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.
As thick smoke billowed from the gutted vehicle, uniformed Palestinian police and security officials in plainclothes struggled to keep the situation under control.
In near darkness and with pistols cocked, they frantically tried to move on a gathering, excitable crowd, and eventually used live ammunition to do so, resulting in clashes monitored by an Israeli drone circling, unseen, overhead.
Although there have been several other attempts on the lives of senior Palestinians as a result of internal disputes, it was the first time a car bomb had been used, Palestinian sources said.
Moussa Arafat said the attempt on his life was not unexpected. “I was expecting this assassination attempt,” he told a press conference, pointing the finger at “a fifth column which wants to destroy the country.”
Moussa Arafat was appointed head of the general security service in July, prompting angry outbursts from militants who branded him a symbol of corruption and warned the controversial appointment would lead to “internal conflict”.
Previous incidents in the Gaza Strip include a spate of kidnappings of senior security officials. Tareq Abu Rajab, acting head of the Palestinian intelligence services, was seriously wounded in August when gunmen ambushed his convoy and killed two of his bodyguards in Gaza City.
On the ground in the refugee camps and squalid outskirts of Gaza City, heavily-armed militants from groups such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad are free to roam, with police seemingly turning a blind eye to their activities.
Those activities include rocket attacks against Israel, which responded most recently by launching a massive military operation in the northern Gaza Strip on Sept. 28.
The breakdown of law and order and a battle for control of the myriad security apparatuses have been at the center of tensions between Yasser Arafat and his Prime Minister Ahmed Qorei in recent months, prompting Qorei to submit his resignation at one stage.
A senior UN official in Gaza said for a best-case scenario for the Palestinians living in the territory, “you have to resolve the dispute between officials ... it has to be settled. For the time being, you don’t see that happening.”
“You can see that the tribal system that has always existed here is coming back with speed,” said Lionel Brisson, director of UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) operations in Gaza.
“Tribes are buying weapons ... trying to do what they used to do years ago, to defend their own property, their own land, their own people.”
The Gaza Strip, which has been occupied by Israel since 1967 along with the West Bank and east Jerusalem, is one of the most densely populated places on earth and has been plagued by rampant lawlessness for several years.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is planning to pull all troops and the 8,000 Jewish settlers currently living in Gaza out of the territory next year.
Critics of his plan have argued that it will merely served to cement the position of Hamas which has been behind the bulk of anti-Israeli attacks during the course of the four-year Palestinian uprising.
Egypt, which is also keen to avoid a descent into lawlessness on its doorsteps after the Israeli withdrawal, is offering to train Palestinian security services.
Israel and the United States are hoping that former Gaza security chief Mohammed Dahlan can step into the breach and bring about stability, although his relationship with the Arafat camp is also far from warm.
