Ex-Gaza security chief fires broadside at Arafat

Gaza strongman Mohammed Dahlan harshly criticised Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, stopping just short of openly challenging his leadership while threatening a demonstration.

Dahlan’s unprecedented remarks came in interviews made public yesterday, as gunmen loyal to Arafat broke up a meeting of West Bank activists from Arafat’s own Fatah movement who ere discussing the need for deep reforms in the Palestinian administration.

These were just the latest incidents in weeks of internal Palestinian unrest, centred on charges of widespread corruption, and beneath the surface, frustration with lack of progress towards creation of a Palestinian state or economic development after four years of bloody conflict with Israel.

Meanwhile, in Gaza early today, Israeli forces entered the Khan Younis refugee camp. As bulldozers destroyed a building, soldiers opened fire, and a woman was killed when a bullet came in through her window, residents said. Doctors said six civilians were wounded.

Military sources said the operation was aimed at the “terrorist infrastructure” in the camp. The sources said militants used the location to fire mortars and rifles at a nearby Jewish settlement.

They said helicopters fired warning shots at an open area to keep gunmen away.

Dahlan, a former Gaza security chief, threatened huge demonstrations unless Arafat reformed his government within 10 days.

“Arafat now sits on the bodies and ruins of Palestinians at a time when they most need support,” Dahlan was quoted as saying by a Kuwaiti newspaper.

Demanding reform, Dahlan said he did not want to destroy Arafat’s image, but to “correct it so that it will stay beautiful”.

But if there was no movement towards reform by August 10, Dahlan said, “a 30,000-strong protest movement would demonstrate in Gaza and demand its implementation”.

Interviewed on al-Arabiya, an Arabic-language satellite TV channel with wide viewership in the Arab world, Dahlan indirectly blamed Arafat for the internal malaise.

“The failure to organise led to this chaos,” he said. ”It’s time that they bring the corrupt to account … in a way different from before.” Dahlan denied that he is trying to replace Arafat.

Although dissatisfaction with Arafat’s rule is spreading in the West Bank and Gaza, there have been no serious calls on him to step down. To the vast majority of his people, Arafat remains the symbol of the Palestinian national movement.

Dahlan appears to be angling for control of the Gaza Strip after Israel’s planned withdrawal next year under prime minister Ariel Sharon’s “unilateral disengagement” plan.

The Israeli proposal to pull its soldiers and settlers out of Gaza after 37 years of occupation has set rival groups in Gaza against each other in a power struggle. Dahlan’s forces are thought by many to be behind two weeks of unrest there, focused on corruption as well as Arafat’s attempt to appoint an unpopular relative as head of Gaza security.

Internal turmoil has also surfaced in the West Bank.

In the city of Nablus yesterday, about 20 men, all armed and many wearing ski masks, burst into a conference of more than 70 Fatah officials, firing over the heads of the presiding officials and claiming that the conference was an anti-Arafat conspiracy.

The gunmen identified themselves as members of the Al Awda Brigades, a small militant group loyal to Arafat.

The week-long meeting was meant to discuss reform and new elections for the Fatah leadership, which were last held 15 years ago.

No-one was injured by the gunfire, but the meeting broke up. Several delegates met the gunmen to discuss whether the conference could continue.

In a letter released later to reporters, the Fatah leaders warned Arafat that corrupt officials “are using their position in the Palestinian Authority to steal and to break the law” and the Palestinian government was losing the public’s trust.