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| Israel-Palestine-Jordan |
| Police storm Gaza legislature in protest at Hamas killing |
| 2005-10-04 |
| Dozens of Palestinian policemen broke into the parliament building in Gaza City yesterday to demand more bullets and the means to better protect themselves after Hamas killed their commander and two others in street battles on Sunday. The protest briefly interrupted a debate on the government's failure to contain growing anarchy by armed Islamist groups and their defiance of orders not to carry weapons in public. MPs overwhelmingly voted to urge the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, to form a new national unity government to deal with the unrest, but stopped short of a no-confidence vote. Mr Abbas said that, following Sunday's fighting, the government was "ready to use all means to prevent the public display of arms". "We will not remain silent in the face of this," he said. "This mob behaviour, this chaos, must end." About 40 policemen stormed the parliament building but only one entered the debating chamber, which has a video link with the main parliament in the West Bank city of Ramallah. There were shots into the air as part of the protest outside. All the officers were from a Gaza City station where a commander and two civilian bystanders were killed after Hamas attacked it with assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades. The officers said they lacked equipment to defend themselves. "We did not have enough bullets," said one policeman. "We had nothing to protect ourselves. Give us as least bullets to protect people and to protect our stations. Our commander died in front of us, and we were running out of bullets." Accounts differ over the cause of the fighting. The Palestinian interior ministry said it started with a row between two men at a cash machine. When one called in Hamas gunmen the police moved in and shooting erupted that spread across the city. But Hamas said the fighting broke out after the police tried to arrest Mohammed Rantisi, the son of former Hamas leader Abdel Aziz Rantisi, who was assassinated by Israel last year. The fighting lasted on and off for about five hours. Following Israel's withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian Authority ordered an end to the carrying of weapons in public by anyone but the security forces. But Mr Abbas resisted demands from Israel that the authority disarm Hamas and its allies, fearing civil war. There is growing pressure from ordinary Palestinians to end the violence, particularly after Hamas killed 17 people when explosives accidentally detonated at a rally last week. |
| Posted by:Sloluting Chert1986 |
| #7 JFM - the whole family of AKs are much more common in the US than you'd think, especially given how cheap the SKS was last decade. I know a number of people with either or both, and I don't run in particularly gun-crazy circles. Either way, the weapon of choice in Palestinian territories these days is the M16, since we dumped a lot of them into the hands of the PA, which let them go right out the door and into the hands of Hamas, and other malefactors. With US-supplied Egypt next door being a prime source of smuggled weapons as well, I'd wager that the only people waving around AKs in the Strip are the guys who got stuck with the thirty-five-year-old-plus hand-me-downs from the days when the Soviets rained equipment on Nasser. |
| Posted by: Mitch H. 2005-10-04 14:31 |
| #6 Peshawar may not be your best choice: "...evidence that up to 400 tons of Kalashnikov ammunition had been shipped from Albania and Serbia to Rwanda with the involvement of Israeli, Rwandan, South African and British companies since the end of 2002." http://www.unicwash.org/newsl/past%20editions/11july05newsl.html |
| Posted by: Darrell 2005-10-04 12:00 |
| #5 That's easy, beagletwo, according to dianne Feinstein and Chuck Schumer they get them at US gun shows. Interesting theory given that neither M14 nor M16 rounds fit in Kalashnikovs. That let's us with rounds imported to the US for those gun collectors who have about every model of gun ever produced Kalashnikovs included and thus need the ammo. But that it is a limited market so I would swear that if what you want is Kalashnikov rounds then it is easier and cheaper to shop in, say, Peshawar |
| Posted by: JFM 2005-10-04 11:12 |
| #4 That's easy, beagletwo, according to dianne Feinstein and Chuck Schumer they get them at US gun shows. That's where all terrorists get their weapons. |
| Posted by: Deacon Blues 2005-10-04 09:49 |
| #3 "...this mob behavior must end."Good luck with that. When "mob" behavior gets you what you want, then why stop? As for the bullet mushkalla, seems that Hamas isn't having that problem. Maybe the police need to find out where Hamas shops for AK rounds. |
| Posted by: beagletwo 2005-10-04 09:02 |
| #2 Yeah, but if they did that, they wouldn't have a reason to ask for more bullets...it's all part of the seething. |
| Posted by: tu3031 2005-10-04 08:44 |
| #1 "There were shots into the air as part of the protest outside." Perhaps they'd have enough bullets if they stopped all their celebratory and tantrum shooting into the air. |
| Posted by: Darrell 2005-10-04 06:49 |