GAZA, 22 August 2005 — Palestinians from the ruling Fatah party armed with assault rifles converged on the Gaza Parliament building yesterday to demand jobs in a protest that underlined challenges ahead for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
Abbas has vowed to crack down on worsening internal lawlessness and faces pressure to rein in militants during Israel’s pullout from the occupied Gaza Strip in order to maintain stability and advance peacemaking efforts. But he has shied from direct confrontations with militants.
At least 200 Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades members, most dressed in black, demanded jobs while accusing officials of corruption. Some fired into the air. The protesters came close to scuffles with police before commanders on both sides ordered calm.
They then dispersed. “We are here only to send a message that Fatah fighters should be treated fairly. Jobs should be secured for those who made dear sacrifices,” said Abu Jihad, a spokesman.
He complained that jobs were given to “those who did not deserve them while the fighters were forgotten”.
One Al-Aqsa protester said through a loudspeaker: “We are not here to beg anybody. We are here to seek our fair rights.”
Israeli forces marched into three Jewish enclaves in Gaza yesterday, bringing the Jewish state closer to completing its evacuation of roughly 8,500 settlers there under a plan billed as “disengagement” from conflict with Palestinians.
Washington has touted the plan as a way to jumpstart peace moves although Palestinians fear it is a ruse to hold onto swathes of the much larger West Bank, which Israel captured along with Gaza in 1967.
Abbas is under pressure to ensure a smooth pullout — Israel’s first removal of settlements from land Palestinians want for a state. But he has struggled to stop internal chaos. His Fatah party has been under fire over accusations of graft, mismanagement and a loss of control over its armed factions.
Abbas, elected in January to replace Yasser Arafat, vowed during his presidential campaign to boost employment and give jobs to gunmen who fought Israeli forces in a Palestinian uprising that began in 2000. The jobs have yet to materialize.
Meanwhile, activists of Palestinian groups have vowed to carry out suicide attacks.
Abu Musab, in a black ski mask, softly declares his intent to be a suicide bomber.
“Twenty-two years is enough to live,” says the member of the radical Palestinian group Islamic Jihad, his brown eyes darting out from behind the mask.
“I hope to be a martyr or a suicide bomber... I will go soon. This is our plan for the future,” he says, kneeling on a rug and flowered cushion next to his mentor, 27-year-old Jihad commander Abu Hamza.
Here in the cement warrens of southern Gaza’s Khan Younis city, the uneasy truce between Abbas and groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad has held through most of Israel’s Gaza Strip withdrawal but could fray any second.