Enlarge imageBy Shahdi al-Kashif
GAZA (Reuters) - Palestinian militants seized a government building in the Gaza Strip but left peacefully after saying President Yasser Arafat had agreed to reinstate comrades dismissed from the national security forces.
Dozens of gunmen from al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades stormed the governorate of Khan Younis town at dawn on Saturday, causing no casualties but dealing a new blow to an Arafat-led Palestinian Authority beset by corruption allegations and widespread civil unrest.
Hours before the Khan Younis governorate takeover, unidentified Palestinians torched a police station in the nearby village of al-Zawaida, residents said. Al-Aqsa denied any involvement.
The masked militants demanded the Palestinian president fire Moussa Arafat, a nephew whose appointment to a senior security post last weekend sparked armed standoffs with hundreds of reformist vigilantes who took to Gaza’s streets in protest.
Advertisement starts
Advertisement ends
But by noon, the leader of the barricaded gunmen said they had decided to quit the governorate after receiving assurances that 11 fellow al-Aqsa men who had been dismissed from jobs with the security forces by Moussa Arafat would be reinstated.
"The crisis is over, as we received a decision by President Yasser Arafat to stop the dismissal," the leader, Abu al-Haj, told Reuters by telephone.
Al-Aqsa, a disparate group of Fatah young bloods, has spearheaded a 3-1/2 year Palestinian uprising against Israel.
Its members have also grown vocal, and often violent, in challenging the old guard’s grip on Palestinian government.
A Palestinian Authority official confirmed the 11 men were employed by the security services, but denied that they had ever been dismissed or moonlighted as al-Aqsa militants.
"This has all been a misunderstanding," said Major-General Faisal Abu Sharaikh, head of Arafat’s bodyguard Force-17.
Pointing to the al-Aqsa link, Israel and the United States accuse Arafat of encouraging Palestinian violence. He denies it.
The Palestinian president shuffled security chiefs on Monday, but did not dismiss his nephew. He has also scrambled to head off a resignation threat by Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qurie, who demands long-awaited reform of security forces.
