Security chief warns of armed chaos in Gaza

Palestinian police are incapable of controlling armed militants, and al-Qaida is posed to infiltrate the Gaza Strip and Israel, Israel’s domestic security chief warned today, reflecting deep Israeli concerns over threats that could result from chaos in Gaza following its handover to the Palestinian Authority.

Yuval Diskin, in his first on-the-record briefing since taking over the Shin Bet security service in May, was commenting on the chaotic situation on the Gaza-Egypt border in the days following Israel’s exit from Gaza last week, when thousands crossed unchecked, bringing large quantities of weapons into Gaza

Diskin termed the Palestinian Authority’s ability to enforce law and order in Gaza to be “negligible at best".

Although Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas opposes terror, his ruling Fatah party is crumbling, and if it doesn’t strengthen, it won’t be able to control Gaza, he said.

Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom also said today Israel “won’t allow Hamas” to participate in Palestinian parliament elections in January, going farther than Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who has threatened to withhold Israeli cooperation if Hamas participates.

Diskin said he is concerned that groups linked to the al-Qaida terror network would find their way into Israel or the Gaza Strip over the newly porous border between Egypt and Gaza, following Israel’s withdrawal this month from the coastal strip.

In Egypt’s Sinai desert, “there is a strong infrastructure of world terror linked to al-Qaida – stronger than the Egyptians themselves were aware of,” Diskin said. “The Egyptians are having a hard time getting on top of it.”

Diskin said he was afraid weapons smuggled into Gaza would eventually find their way into the West Bank and violent groups would shift their focus there. Hamas has credited its attacks for driving Israel out of Gaza, and is calling for redoubled efforts in the West Bank, where Israel has 246,000 settlers.

A day after Israeli forces left four evacuated settlements in the northern West Bank, completing its ”disengagement,” a group of displaced settlers from Gaza said they had government permission to relocate at an old military base in the West Bank.

Shirat Hayam evacuees said they would move to Maskiyot in the northern Jordan River valley, now a military school. That would violate Israeli pledges not to set up new settlements in the West Bank, contained in the internationally backed “road map” peace plan and promises to the US

However, Ron Sheckner, a Defence Ministry official, denied that permission has been given. “No one got a promise about this,” he said, adding that Israel would only expand existing settlements – also a violation of the “road map.”

Palestinians said any decision to move Gaza settlers to Maskiyot would ruin the positive atmosphere created by the Gaza withdrawal. “It seems that the Israelis give with one hand and take away with the other,” Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said.

Celebrations at the evacuated West Bank settlements continued Wednesday. Dozens of gunmen from the Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, a violent group with ties to Abbas’ Fatah movement, fired in the air.

“This is our victory … the victory of your weapons,” Zakariya Zubeydi, a leader of the gunmen, told several hundred supporters. “We will continue to expel them (Israelis) from every centimetre of Palestine.”

With Palestinian lawmakers preparing a no-confidence motion Monday because of lawlessness in the West Bank and Gaza, Abbas allies were exploring the possibility of a Cabinet reshuffle to head it off.

Deputy parliament speaker Hassan Khreisha, mediating between the parliament and the Cabinet, said a majority of the lawmakers appear to favour dissolving the government. Still, he said, “we may find a compromise, like reshuffling the Cabinet.”