Gaza Palestinians call for order after murders

Hundreds of Palestinians demonstrated today to call on Palestinian authorities to instill order in light of a rise in violent crimes in the coastal strip.

Gaza has experienced a sharp rise in murders and other violence in recent months amid a growing wave of lawlessness. An increasing number of Palestinians have armed themselves due to continued fighting with Israel and uncertainty ahead of a planned Israeli withdrawal from Gaza next year.

Palestinian police say they are unable to preserve calm while Israeli military operations continue. Many security headquarters have been destroyed in Israeli army raids during four years of fighting, allowing armed gangs to roam with virtual impunity.

In the past five weeks alone, three Palestinians have been murdered, including a woman and a young girl who was also raped. In another incident, a boy was kidnapped and held for ransom.

The violence has brought the crime level to an unprecedented rate for the Gaza Strip since the Palestinian Authority was established in 1994.

Shouting “How long will this chaos continue”, about 600 Palestinians demonstrated today outside the trial of a Palestinian preventative security officer accused of murdering a car mechanic.

In the shooting on November 24, the police officer shot Ahed Bisisso with an automatic weapon for not agreeing to immediately work on his car and going to pray for a Muslim holiday instead.

A relative of the mechanic, Maamoun Bisisso, suggested that if the court did not convict the officer, the family could take the matter into their own hands.

“We want the Palestinian Authority to take tough measures against some security men who are violating the law and some gangs who are practising terror against people,” Bisisso said at the demonstration.

In another murder last week, a Palestinian woman was stabbed to death by a cousin who had wanted to marry her. The cousin’s act came after the woman married another man. On December 5, a nine-year-old girl was raped and stabbed to death by a neighbour in the town of Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip.

The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights called on Palestinian security to crack down on the lawlessness.

“The Palestinian Authority should make intense efforts to arrest the people behind the latest crimes and bring them to justice,” the centre said in a statement.

Brig. Gen. Moussa Abdel Nabi, the chief of the crime department in the Palestinian police, said security was doing its best to bring about law and order.

Palestinian security has been reluctant to collect guns carried by off-duty officers and by Palestinian individuals, especially in the fragile environment following the death of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat on November 11.

Palestinian security officials say they will crack down on the lawlessness, but don’t to spark further violence before January 9 elections to replace Arafat.