GAZA CITY, 14 September 2005 — Taking a tough stand, President Mahmoud Abbas vowed yesterday to end internal armed chaos but warned that the Middle East conflict would not end until the Palestinians were granted independence.
In a televised address the day after Israel ended its 38-year occupation of the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian president pledged to address the anarchy which pervaded large parts of that territory and the West Bank.
However, the Hamas movement made it clear that it would not surrender its weapons and vowed to intensify attacks against Israel in the West Bank and Jerusalem, where the Palestinians want to have the capital of their future state.
Rampant insecurity in Gaza threatens to become a major stumbling block for the Palestinian case for statehood.
“We will no longer tolerate from this day the security anarchy, the armed chaos and the kidnappings,” Abbas said.
“The principle that unites us is that we have one authority, one law and one legal weapon,” he said, referring to the arms of the Palestinian security services.
Hamas’ leader in its Gaza stronghold responded by pledging that “our weapons will remain in our hands until the Palestinian flag is hoisted in Jerusalem.
“The West Bank awaits the jihad and martyrdom, and Jerusalem should expect more resistance,” Mahmoud Zahar added at a rally in Gaza City.
Abbas has repeatedly criticized the use of weapons during the five-year uprising but fighter groups have vowed to retain their arms and continue attacks against Israel despite the pullout from Gaza.
The Palestinian leader, who declared an end to hostilities at a summit with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in February, said the conflict would not finally end until the Palestinians are granted their promised state. “The occupation will not end until the objectives of the peace process, namely the creation of an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital in the territories which were occupied in 1967, have been met,” he added.
The peace process has essentially ground to a halt since the Palestinian uprising broke out in September 2000 and Sharon took his unilateral decision to leave Gaza.
Abbas said, however, that he was ready to hold “immediate negotiations” with Israel on the final status of the Palestinian territories.
He appealed to Washington and the international community to “continue to deploy your efforts” to ensure the implementation of the stalled road map peace plan which targets the creation of a Palestinian state alongside a secure Israel.
The sense of bitterness was evident yesterday in the abandoned settlements where former synagogues have been torched and looting of infrastructure continued despite the appeals of Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qorei.
“Please protect this land. It is for you and yours to protect,” Qorei said as he toured the main Gush Katif settlement bloc in southern Gaza which housed 15 of the 21 former Jewish outposts. In some of the settlements, security forces halfheartedly tried to expel looters but stopped short of using force or confiscating their booty.
Qorei attributed the chaotic scenes to the pent-up fury felt by people toward their former Israeli neighbors who lived in relative luxury, denying that it exposed any weakness on the part of the Palestinian Authority.
“This is not a matter of weakness. It is people expressing their feelings that the situation should be changed,” he told AFP.
“They wanted access to see there is no more occupation and no more settlers in Gaza,” he added. “The nightmare has left.”
Officials meanwhile announced that they would seal Gaza’s border with Egypt from midnight (2100 GMT) after hundreds of families held emotional reunions across the divided town of Rafah.
Four national security battalions, around 1,200 men, will be deployed along a “hermetically sealed” border to prevent any infiltrations, said Col. Jamal Kayed, commander of national security in southern Gaza.
— With input from agencies
