 Gunmen stormed two buildings in Gaza on Sunday to protest against the arrest of a top official from the leading Fatah group by a Palestinian security officer. The gunmen from al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a militant group from Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah faction, said they were protesting because men from the Preventive Security Service took away senior official Suleiman al-Fara. The Palestinian Interior Ministry confirmed Fara had been arrested but refused to say why. The gunmen took over a building owned by the Palestinian Red Crescent Thingy Society in the town of Khan Younis and then seized a municipal building nearby. Neither building was occupied and the Red Crescent did not comment. | They can say no more neither. |
Both incidents seemed to be the latest examples of factional rivalry in the West Bank and Gaza, part of a violent political culture that Abbas has vowed to combat. "We will continue to carry out our protest activities and we are prepared to carry out things beyond imagination," said one of the gunmen. Fara is the director of the office of Farouq al-Qadoumi, the chairman of Fatah and a Palestine Liberation Organisation leader who is currently living in exile. Qadoumi said in a statement Fatah would "take the roughest measures of conduct" against those who detained him if Fara was not released in 24 hours". Tension between various forces in the Gaza Strip grew last week after Fatah activists began training what they called a "Popular Army" that they said would help to keep law and order. Officials close to Abbas, under pressure at home and abroad to slim down security services and disarm burgeoning militia, said the Fatah force was not approved. |