J Post

Arafat cuts short trip due to internecine Gaza clashes

By Lamia Lahoud and News Agencies

GAZA CITY (July 25) - Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat cut short a visit to the United Arab Emirates yesterday and flew back to Gaza to deal with clashes between his security forces and the Palestinian Popular Resistance Committees (PPRC).

About 20 PPRC gunmen, including members of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and other rejectionist groups, shot at Palestinian Military Intelligence chief Moussa Arafat's home in Gaza City on Monday night. Palestinian security sources said some 300 rioters also threw stones at the 10-story building where Moussa Arafat, a nephew of the PA chairman, lives. His bodyguards fired back, aiming over the attackers' heads, witnesses said.

The PPRC said the assailants were protesting at the arrest of five comrades by the Palestinian Police earlier in the day.

"The Palestinian Authority should stop political arrests. It should liaise with the resistance against the occupation and not confiscate the rifles of fighters," the senior leader of the group said. "Rifles must only be directed against the occupation forces, but sometimes people's feelings get out of control." The PPRC says it is made up of dozens of former members of Palestinian factions.

A Palestinian official denied the PA is making political arrests, but said some militants have been detained on "disciplinary grounds." He accused Hamas of inciting Monday night's violence by spreading "false rumors about the death of some activists."

The official added that PPRC members should follow orders and return to their security force headquarters. "We will not allow anyone to harm Palestinian national unity. We will not allow anyone to form an authority inside the authority," he said.

The arrests were decided upon by the Palestinian High Security Council, comprising all the PA security organs. Of these, Moussa Arafat's is especially unpopular, as it deals with public disturbances. Unlike Gaza Preventive Security Service chief Mohammed Dahlan, who used to be a Fatah leader, or Palestinian Intelligence chief Amin Hindi, who earned his reputation as a PLO fighter, Moussa Arafat has little or no popular support.

One PA source said that Chairman Arafat is taking the attack seriously and will not be able to let it pass unpunished.

Also Monday, Palestinian policemen shot and wounded three masked men who refused to stop at a roadblock. A senior Palestinian security official said the men were in a convoy of three cars which launched a rifle-propelled grenade and opened fire at the policemen manning the roadblock when ordered to stop.

The policemen apparently thought the three were undercover Israeli agents. However, a joint Hamas-PPRC statement revealed that the men had just returned from firing a mortar at Israel.

The arrests and clashes are likely linked to Chairman Arafat's promise to the G-8 nations to enforce the cease-fire, thus clearing the way for American efforts to pressure Israel into accepting international monitors and presenting a timetable for the implementation of the Mitchell Report.

Nonetheless, a senior leader of the PPRC vowed yesterday to continue fighting Israel. The leader said the PPRC will resist any PA decision to dismantle the group, some members of which are Palestinian security personnel.

The PPRC leader argued that the intifada has yet to achieve its goals. "The resistance committees were established to fight the occupation and therefore they must remain until the occupation ends," he said.

He said Palestinians have lost faith in peacemaking with Israel, which he said is carrying out "daily massacres" against residents of Gaza and the West Bank. "The Tenet document, the Mitchell proposal, and the Arab initiatives all are useless," he added.

Asked why, as soldiers, the PPRC men would not obey an order to return to base, the official said: "If we are to choose between salaries and national interest, we will chose national interest... Any attempt to arrest our members by force will be met by force."

-- Anonymous, July 25, 2001