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Police storm Gaza legislature in protest at Hamas killing
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 2005-10-04 |
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