Gun-Toting Backers Boost Arafat With Massive Rally

In a massive show of force, an estimated 10,000 supporters of PLO leader Yasser Arafat marched in Gaza City on Monday, firing their guns in the air and chanting slogans against the Islamic opposition just days after Arafat’s security forces and Islamic militants engaged in bloody street battles.

“Here is the weapon, here are the Fatah Hawks, at the hands of our leader, Yasser Arafat, ready to heed your call,” roared thousands of young men armed with automatic weapons. “Whoever wrongs Fatah, Fatah will open his head.”

Fatah is the largest faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization and was founded in the 1960s by Arafat, chairman of the PLO and head of the Palestinian self-governing authority.

The march marked a change of tactics for Arafat from the conciliatory stance he took after his police force opened fire on Islamic demonstrators Friday, killing 14. The two sides quickly agreed to a truce, but efforts to extend that to a broader political accord between Arafat and Islamic militants stalled Monday morning.

Fatah’s march seemed calculated to show the Islamic organizations that Arafat’s faction remains the strongest in Gaza.

“No one can compete with Fatah and with the PLO or with the Palestinian police and the Palestinian security forces,” Arafat told the cheering crowd, speaking from the same spot where he first addressed Palestinians after his return to Gaza in July after decades in exile.

After negotiations with the Islamic militants began to falter Sunday night, Arafat requested the rally, according to Palestinian sources.

On Monday, the Voice of Palestine, the Palestinian Authority’s official radio station, broadcast blunt warnings to the Islamic opposition groups.

Describing Fatah as the mother of all Palestinians, Voice of Palestine warned that any child who disobeys his Fatah mother will face severe punishment. At first, an unidentified commentator said, the child will be grabbed by the ear. If he continues to disobey, “the ear will be cut. Maybe later, also hands and legs will be cut, and also throats will be cut. The message of the mother of the children is clear and open and harsh and tough.”

The radio station also appealed to Fatah activists to attend the pro-Arafat march and to bring their guns with them. Many of the militants who responded by the busload to Arafat’s call were leaders of the Palestinian uprising, or intifada, that erupted in Gaza and the West Bank in 1987.

They had been largely pushed aside when Arafat and other PLO officials arrived in Gaza from Tunis, Tunisia, to take over the self-governing authority in July. But Arafat turned to them Monday as his strongest base of support in the territories.

“Today is a referendum of the national authority, a referendum of the PLO,” Arafat told the crowd. “The state of alert continues, and eyes are open. You are the protectors of security; no one can take away from Fatah and the Palestinian police,” he said.

Hours before the march began, leaders of Hamas and Islamic Jihad told reporters that they would not sign an accord with Arafat brokered by a group of Israeli Arab leaders.

“Arafat must accept personal responsibility for what happened Friday. That is our No. 1 condition. Until that condition is met, we will not sign anything,” said Ahmed Bahar, a Hamas leader in Gaza. The Palestinian Authority had offered to set up a judicial commission of inquiry into Friday’s occurrences but balked at accepting blame for what the opposition calls the “massacre.”

On Friday, an estimated 200 armed Palestinian police, wearing helmets and carrying riot shields, surrounded the Palestine Mosque in downtown Gaza City, where about 6,000 worshipers--many of them supporters of Hamas and Islamic Jihad--had gathered for noon prayers. Accounts differ over who started the confrontation that ensued, but a riot erupted as prayers ended. Police fired at rock-throwing demonstrators, and the clash soon spread into surrounding streets.

It was the first clash between Palestinian police and civilians since Israel handed day-to-day control of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank town of Jericho to the PLO in May. Before the fighting ended Friday night, about 13 people had been shot dead and at least 129 wounded. A 14th victim, Ata Kanan, died of his wounds Monday and was buried. About 200 supporters of Islamic organizations attended his funeral.

Friday’s bloodshed sent shock waves through the Palestinian community and raised the specter of civil war erupting in Gaza. Mediation efforts were launched immediately, and all sides initially called for calm.

But the Islamic opposition parties listed stiff political demands they said Arafat must fulfill as their price for reconciliation. They refused to disarm or to moderate their violent opposition to the PLO’s accord with Israel.

Some leaders of the more militant Islamic Jihad and the Izzidin al-Qassam faction of Hamas have even threatened to begin attacking Palestinian police and Palestinian officials unless Arafat agrees to dismiss, try and execute senior police officers and dismiss Justice Minister Freih abu Medeen.

“This was a Fatah rally with a clear message,” Hisham Abdel Razik, a Fatah leader in Gaza, said in an interview on Israeli television Monday night. “The message is that Fatah is the one who carried the struggle for 30 years. It is Fatah who brought about the success of the political process. It is Fatah who brought about the first step on the road to Jerusalem.”