Palestinians evacuate a man injured when Hamas security forces opened fire at a Fatah memorial rally for Yasser Arafat in the Gaza Strip.
Three years after his death, Yasser Arafat still has the capacity to conjure up violence. At a huge memorial rally in Gaza on Monday, at least six people were killed and 80 wounded when supporters of the Palestinian chairman's successor, Mahmoud Abbas, clashed with Islamic militants of Hamas. Arafat's Fatah organization, now headed by Abbas, has been in the middle of a virtual civil war with Hamas since June. Indeed, they have divided up the two Palestinian enclaves between them, with Hamas dominating the Gaza Strip and Fatah controlling the West Bank.
Hamas commanders saw the 200,000-strong Arafat memorial rally by as a provocation, a challenge to their rule in the Gaza Strip by rivals of the Fatah movement, loyal to President Abbas. Hamas routed Fatah fighters in Gaza last June, but Arafat's old militia still has many followers in Gaza, judging from the rally's size. Gaza sources also said that many Palestinians attended the memorial as a protest against Hamas's tightening control over Gaza, which has triggered international sanctions by Israel and the international community on Gaza's 1.5 million residents. Palestinians in Gaza face constant shortages of food and supplies, factory shutdowns, and reprisal raids by the Israeli defense forces every time the militants fire off rockets in the direction of Israel.
Since taking over Gaza, Hamas has banned opposition rallies, but they relented for Arafat's memorial ceremony. A controversial figure among many Palestinians, Arafat nonetheless maintains a strong following for his leadership during the decades-long fight against Israel. On Monday, Fatah claimed that Hamas gunmen opened fire as a wave of Fatah supporters approached the Islamic University, and chaos ensued as the marchers fled between buildings draped with giant murals of Arafat's grizzled visage. But Hamas insists that Fatah snipers on the rooftops were the first to shoot.
Tension has risen between Hamas and Fatah in recent months, after Abbas loyalists struck back against the Gaza takeover by arresting hundreds of Hamas supporters inside the West Bank territory. In Gaza, Hamas officials accuse Fatah militant cells of setting off roadside bombs aimed at Hamas patrols. Apparently, according to Gaza journalists and eyewitnesses, those past incidents made Hamas fighters, unskilled at policing even small crowds, ready to lash out during the Fatah rally.
The rally deaths will complicate the task of Arab moderates, such as Saudi Arabia, who are trying to reunite the two warring Palestinian factions. Hamas opposes Abbas's plans to attend a U.S.-sponsored Israeli-Arab summit in Annapolis, Maryland, later this month. Ahmed Qurie, chief Palestinian negotiator with the Israelis, compared Hamas's reign in Gaza to the Israeli occupation inside the Palestinian territories. "The policy of silencing the other side will not win," he said. Meanwhile, a Hamas spokesman, Sami Abu Zuhri blamed Fatah for provoking the latest Gaza shooting. With reporting by Jamil Hamad/Bethlehem