Posted on 02/29/2004 7:39:12 PM PST by Nachum
Some 50 gunmen belonging to Fatah's armed wing, the Aksa Martyrs Brigades, raided the offices of the Palestinian Broadcasting Corporation in Khan Yunis Saturday night, demanding that they be employed by the Palestinian Authority security forces.
This is the fourth incident of its kind in Khan Yunis in recent months. The Fatah gunmen have on previous occasions gone on a rampage inside the headquarters of PA Governor Hosni Zu'rub.
Witnesses said the armed activists who stormed the offices of the PBC ordered all the employees to leave, demanding that Zu'rub fulfill his promise to absorb them in various branches of the security forces.
The attackers claimed that the governor and senior PA officials had promised to give them jobs as police officers about two months ago.
Zu'rub strongly condemned the assault on the PBC offices, saying any attack on a government office or institution is harmful to the dignity of the Palestinians.
He also warned that such attacks threaten the unity of the Palestinians and reflect the chaos prevalent in the PA-controlled areas.
The Fatah gunmen said they would not leave the offices until their demands are met. "We've had enough of the empty promises," one of the gunmen told The Jerusalem Post.
"President [PA Chairman Yasser] Arafat has ordered the security forces to give us jobs, but the local commanders are refusing to carry out his instructions. We are not criminals. We have fought the Israeli enemy and many of our men have sacrificed their lives. We deserve a better treatment."
The attack on the PBC offices coincided with a similar raid on the offices of the PA's Land Authority in Gaza City. At least 20 heavily armed policemen and security officers surrounded the building before storming it and threatening to shoot the workers. The attackers demanded that the PA allocate land for building new houses for their families, claiming that Arafat had approved their request.
In response, Land Authority head Freih Abu Medien decided to close down all the offices belonging to the institution, including the land registry and the survey department. He said the attack on the Land Authority offices was not the first, and that similar incidents had occurred in recent months.
"This is a very serious phenomenon," said Abu Medien, a former minister of justice. "This is an extension of what other armed groups did over the past year. They have illegally seized lands, including public land, exploiting the chaos."
He said repeated appeals to the PA leadership and the security forces to halt the attacks have fallen on deaf ears. "Now that they are resorting to weapons as a means of intimidation, the Land Authority is forced to close down all its offices in the Gaza Strip," he added. "We are seeking to protect documents and land belonging to citizens and the state."
Abu Medien also decided to revoke the allocation of land to top PA and security officials who failed to pay their debts to the Land Authority or who had sold their plots. He noted that some officials had deceived the Land Authority into giving them land when they already owned houses and apartments.
The attacks on the PA institutions in the Gaza Strip are an indication of the growing anarchy in the Palestinian territories. Last Friday, Nablus Mayor Ghassan Shakah resigned after seven years in office, accusing the PA leadership of failing to rein in armed thugs who are terrorizing the public.
In recent months, gunmen belonging to various Palestinian groups and security forces have targeted newspapers, journalists, officials, political activists, and PA institutions in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Last Thursday, masked men opened fire at Nu'man al-Shanti, a senior Fatah official in Gaza City, but missed him. The commander of the PA police force, Ghazi Jabali, was roughed up in his office by four members of the Preventative Security Service, who also jammed his head in a toilet. One of Jabali's bodyguards was killed and 10 others wounded in the ensuing shoot-out with the assailants.
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