[NYTr] Several Killed at Gaza Arafat Memorial Rally

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

The New York Times - Nov 12, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/13/world/middleeast/13mideast.html


Several Killed in Clash at Gaza Rally

By TAGHREED EL-KHODARY and ISABEL KERSHNER

Gaza City, Nov. 12 — At least six Palestinians were killed and more
than a hundred were wounded here today when a mass rally marking the
third anniversary of the death of Yasir Arafat, the longtime
Palestinian leader, ended in armed clashes between the rival factions
of Hamas and Fatah.

All of the dead and most of the wounded were Fatah supporters who had
been taking part in the rally, according to doctors at two Gaza
hospitals.

Tens of thousands of Gaza residents had turned out to honor Mr. Arafat,
the founder of the Fatah movement, in the largest show of support for
the mainstream Palestinian organization since the Islamic group Hamas
seized control of the territory last June.

Fatah officials estimated that more than 250,000 people attended the
rally; the total population of Gaza is about 1.5 million.

Hamas and Fatah accused each other of starting the violence. A
spokesman for the Hamas-run Interior Ministry in Gaza, Ehab al-Ghsein,
said that Fatah gunmen stationed on city rooftops first opened fire at
members of the Hamas police force, injuring four. Fatah supporters also
started throwing stones at the police, he said.

The Hamas takeover of Gaza earlier this year was preceded by a bloody
factional war. Since Hamas routed the Fatah forces, it has tried to
impose order, and subdue public displays of support for Fatah.

Hamas did not attempt to prevent the rally today from taking place, in
deference to the popularity of Mr. Arafat, who is viewed by many
Palestinians as a symbol of national unity.

But Mr. Ghsein accused Fatah of trying to reignite the internal strife.
“There are those who aim to bring lawlessness back to the Gaza Strip,”
he said.

Hazem Abu Shanab, a Fatah leader in Gaza, rejected the Hamas version of
events as “nonsense.” “The shooting came from one side only, toward
civilians who came out to support Fatah,” he said.

The rally had begun peacefully, with many women and children in the
crowd, but the mutual hostility between the rival camps of Hamas and
Fatah was already palpable from the start.

Hamas policemen took up positions on the roofs of the highest buildings
and the group’s members mingled among the crowd in civilian clothes.

Hamas police officers confiscated Fatah flags and posters of Mr. Arafat
from the cars of Fatah supporters. Meanwhile, rally participants
shouted harsh slogans against the Islamic group, including “Shia,
Shia,” in reference to the support that Hamas gets from Iran. The vast
majority of Palestinians are Sunni Muslims.

The shooting erupted when the rally was almost over, and lasted for an
hour and a half.

Fawziya Abu Karish came to the rally with her 11-year-old daughter,
Amira. “I hadn’t wanted to come,” she said, but her brother, who was
injured in the June fighting, called her from Egypt and “begged” her
“to go out in support of Fatah,” she said. Amira said that a man
standing next to her was shot in the legs from a distance.

At Gaza’s Shifa Hospital, Afaf Abu Tayeh, 45, was waiting by the
morgue. She had come to look for two of her sons, aged 16 and 17. “The
Israelis were more merciful than them,” she said of Hamas. “They beat
children in front of my eyes.”

Ashraf al-Bitar, 23, a member of the Hamas naval police, said that
Hamas had to react once Fatah gunmen started shooting, and their
supporters stoned the police and called them “Shia.”

After Hamas took over Gaza, the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas,
of Fatah, dissolved the Hamas-led unity government, in which several
Fatah ministers had served, and appointed a caretaker government made
up mostly of independents in the West Bank.

Hamas, which won parliamentary elections in 2006, does not recognize
the authority of the Abbas government and rules alone in Gaza.

Since the takeover, Fatah has enjoyed a slight increase in popularity.
A newly released opinion poll by the Jerusalem Media and Communications
Center, an independent Palestinian organization, indicated a slight
rise in support for Fatah at the expense of Hamas.

Forty percent of the respondents said that Fatah was the party they
trusted most, while 20 percent said they most trusted Hamas.

In Gaza, 43 percent favored Fatah, and 25 percent Hamas.

In a similar poll conducted by the center in Sept. 2006, Fatah and
Hamas came in almost neck and neck, with 31 percent and 30 percent
respectively. (The new poll was based on a random sample of 1,200
respondents in the West Bank and Gaza, with a margin of error of plus
or minus 3 percent.)

At a mass rally in honor of Mr. Arafat in the West Bank city of
Ramallah on Sunday, President Abbas denounced what he called the “black
coup” in Gaza, and was received enthusiastically by the crowd.

The bitter divide between Gaza and the West Bank hung like a specter
over the proceedings. Tamer Hamayel, 19, from a village outside
Ramallah, said such a divide of Palestinian territory would have been
“impossible” were Mr. Arafat still alive. “Abu Ammar held the
Palestinians together,” he said, referring to the late leader by his
familiar nom de guerre.

About half of the 74 Hamas legislators are currently being held in
Israeli jails.

On Sunday night, Israeli forces detained Mariam Saleh, a Hamas
parliamentarian and former minister of women’s affairs, in Ramallah,
and Khaled Tafesh, a senior Hamas member, in Bethlehem, a military
spokesman said.

Despite the latest arrests, the Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert,
told the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee of the Israeli
parliament today that he is considering releasing more Palestinian
prisoners ahead of the international Middle East peace conference
sponsored by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and expected to take
place in Annapolis, Md., in the coming weeks.

“The prime minister is well aware of the importance of the prisoner
issue to the Palestinians,” Mr. Olmert’s spokeswoman, Miri Eisin, said.

The Israeli government has already released about 350 Palestinian
prisoners, mostly belonging to Fatah, in two batches since July, part
of a series of gestures meant to bolster Mr. Abbas. There are currently
more than 10,000 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.

[Taghreed El-Khodary reported from Gaza City, and Isabel Kershner
reported from Jerusalem.]

Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company