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."
LANDMARK CASE: ‘Every night we were dragged to US soldiers and sexually abused. Every week we were forced to undergo venereal disease tests,’ a victim said More than 100 South Korean women who were forced to work as prostitutes for US soldiers stationed in the country have filed a landmark lawsuit accusing Washington of abuse, their lawyers said yesterday. Historians and activists say tens of thousands of South Korean women worked for state-sanctioned brothels from the 1950s to 1980s, serving US troops stationed in country to protect the South from North Korea. In 2022, South Korea’s top court ruled that the government had illegally “established, managed and operated” such brothels for the US military, ordering it to pay about 120 plaintiffs compensation. Last week, 117 victims
‘HYANGDO’: A South Korean lawmaker said there was no credible evidence to support rumors that Kim Jong-un has a son with a disability or who is studying abroad South Korea’s spy agency yesterday said that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s daughter, Kim Ju-ae, who last week accompanied him on a high-profile visit to Beijing, is understood to be his recognized successor. The teenager drew global attention when she made her first official overseas trip with her father, as he met with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Analysts have long seen her as Kim’s likely successor, although some have suggested she has an older brother who is being secretly groomed as the next leader. The South Korean National Intelligence Service (NIS) “assesses that she [Kim Ju-ae]
In the week before his fatal shooting, right-wing US political activist Charlie Kirk cheered the boom of conservative young men in South Korea and warned about a “globalist menace” in Tokyo on his first speaking tour of Asia. Kirk, 31, who helped amplify US President Donald Trump’s agenda to young voters with often inflammatory rhetoric focused on issues such as gender and immigration, was shot in the neck on Wednesday at a speaking event at a Utah university. In Seoul on Friday last week, he spoke about how he “brought Trump to victory,” while addressing Build Up Korea 2025, a conservative conference
China has approved the creation of a national nature reserve at the disputed Scarborough Shoal (Huangyan Island, 黃岩島), claimed by Taiwan and the Philippines, the government said yesterday, as Beijing moves to reinforce its territorial claims in the contested region. A notice posted online by the Chinese State Council said that details about the area and size of the project would be released separately by the Chinese National Forestry and Grassland Administration. “The building of the Huangyan Island National Nature Reserve is an important guarantee for maintaining the diversity, stability and sustainability of the natural ecosystem of Huangyan Island,” the notice said. Scarborough
RSS