Dozens of gunmen fired wildly into the air as a Gaza Strip strongman rejected calls for an end to public displays of weapons, raising the risk of new factional violence.
Samir Masharawi, a senior member of the Fatah Party in Gaza, spoke on Saturday, a day after four people were killed and 36 wounded in unrest sparked by the killing of a top, Hamas-linked militant in a car bombing. His followers accused the Fatah-dominated Preventive Security Service and top Fatah officials in Gaza, including Masharawi, of involvement.
Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, a Hamas member, appealed for calm on Saturday and pledged to remove rogue gunmen from the streets of Gaza.
PHOTO: AP
But Masharawi, one of the most powerful figures in Gaza, rejected the call. Returning to Gaza from Egypt in a heavily armed convoy, Masharawi told reporters that he was offended by the "baseless" allegations against security forces and Fatah leaders. He also said he would not be able to persuade his followers to hide their arms.
"It seems that the brothers in Hamas forget that they are in power and represent a Palestinian government and are responsible for defending security institutions," he said.
As he spoke, dozens of bodyguards fired repeatedly in the air.
Gaza has been plagued by lawlessness in recent months, with gunmen roaming the streets with impunity. Many have ties to Fatah.
Hamas is the only armed Palestinian group still honoring a year-old ceasefire with Israel, but it appears willing to tolerate attacks on Israel by other groups. After a Fatah-linked suicide bomber killed four Israelis in the West Bank on Thursday, Hamas officials affirmed the Palestinian right to "resist occupation."
"Israel forces the people into this kind of action," Palestinian Information Minister Youssef Rizka said.
Israeli counterterrorism expert Boaz Ganor said Hamas is caught in the conundrum of trying to gain international legitimacy while keeping to its violent ideology.
"They are trying to hold the stick from both ends," he said. "Maybe they can stop their own fire, but they can't speak out against others."
Hamas took control of the Palestinian Authority on Wednesday, two months after trouncing Fatah in legislative elections.
It has pledged to restore order in Gaza and the West Bank, but Palestinian security forces have been involved in much of the violence, and Hamas has little control over them.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, a Fatah member who favors peace talks with Israel, has also struggled to maintain control over the Palestinian security forces.
The militant who was killed on Friday, Abu Yousef Abu Quka, was a senior commander of the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC), an umbrella group of about 200 gunmen that has been linked to explosions of Israeli tanks and a deadly attack on a US diplomatic convoy in 2003.
About half the PRC gunmen are allied with Hamas and the other half with Fatah.
Interior Minister Said Siyam, who oversees security affairs, met with representatives of various Palestinian factions and urged calm to avoid "internal strife."
Asked about Masharawi's statements, Siyam, a Hamas member, said: "We don't want to spark the fire and the strife."
DISASTER: The Bangladesh Meteorological Department recorded a magnitude 5.7 and tremors reached as far as Kolkata, India, more than 300km away from the epicenter A powerful earthquake struck Bangladesh yesterday outside the crowded capital, Dhaka, killing at least five people and injuring about a hundred, the government said. The magnitude 5.5 quake struck at 10:38am near Narsingdi, Bangladesh, about 33km from Dhaka, the US Geological Survey (USGS) said. The earthquake sparked fear and chaos with many in the Muslim-majority nation of 170 million people at home on their day off. AFP reporters in Dhaka said they saw people weeping in the streets while others appeared shocked. Bangladesh Interim Leader Muhammad Yunus expressed his “deep shock and sorrow over the news of casualties in various districts.” At least five people,
ON THE LAM: The Brazilian Supreme Court said that the former president tried to burn his ankle monitor off as part of an attempt to orchestrate his escape from Brazil Former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro — under house arrest while he appeals a conviction for a foiled coup attempt — was taken into custody on Saturday after the Brazilian Supreme Court deemed him a high flight risk. The court said the far-right firebrand — who was sentenced to 27 years in prison over a scheme to stop Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva from taking office after the 2022 elections — had attempted to disable his ankle monitor to flee. Supreme Court judge Alexandre de Moraes said Bolsonaro’s detention was a preventive measure as final appeals play out. In a video made
It is one of the world’s most famous unsolved codes whose answer could sell for a fortune — but two US friends say they have already found the secret hidden by Kryptos. The S-shaped copper sculpture has baffled cryptography enthusiasts since its 1990 installation on the grounds of the CIA headquarters in Virginia, with three of its four messages deciphered so far. Yet K4, the final passage, has kept codebreakers scratching their heads. Sculptor Jim Sanborn, 80, has been so overwhelmed by guesses that he started charging US$50 for each response. Sanborn in August announced he would auction the 97-character solution to K4
SHOW OF FORCE: The US has held nine multilateral drills near Guam in the past four months, which Australia said was important to deter coercion in the region Five Chinese research vessels, including ships used for space and missile tracking and underwater mapping, were active in the northwest Pacific last month, as the US stepped up military exercises, data compiled by a Guam-based group shows. Rapid militarization in the northern Pacific gets insufficient attention, the Pacific Center for Island Security said, adding that it makes island populations a potential target in any great-power conflict. “If you look at the number of US and bilateral and multilateral exercises, there is a lot of activity,” Leland Bettis, the director of the group that seeks to flag regional security risks, said in an
RSS