In the chaos of Nablus, the enemy is not always Israeli

Palestinian factions turn on each other in West Bank city

Chris McGreal in Nablus

Wednesday February 11, 2004

The Guardian

The leather-jacketed heavies surrounding Ghassan Shaqa are not there to shield him from the Israeli troops grinding their way through the casbah in search of "the resistance". It is from other Palestinians that the mayor of Nablus seeks protection.

His brother was murdered two months ago in an ambush almost certainly intended for the mayor: one of dozens of Palestinians killed by Palestinians in recent months as the West Bank city of about 150,000 people has crumbled into lawlessness, organised crime and vigilante justice.

But there are many in Nablus who say that Mr Shaqa is contributing to the destabilisation by his bitter political, and some say violent, rivalry with the area's governor, Mahmoud Aloul.

Armed gangs have abducted the governor's brother, razed a family business and tried to assassinate his political allies in the Palestine Liberation Organisation.

With the collapse of order has come a surge in extortion, kidnapping for ransom and the settling of feuds between rival families dressed up as killing collaborators.

Among the dead are several innocent bystanders killed in the crossfire of botched abductions and gunbattles on the streets. They include a 13-year-old boy shot on his way to get a haircut and a mother of three murdered while buying medicine for one of her children.

Taysir Naserallah, a leading representative of Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement in Nablus, said repeated Israeli invasion of the city, compounded by months of curfews and economic collapse, had brought about the chaos. But Mr Arafat was also to blame, he said.

"We are living in a state of chaos in Nablus because you don't know who is hitting who, and there are a lot of people taking advantage of it," he said.

"There are two factors behind this: the collapse in the Palestinian Authority's control because of the Israelis, and Arafat's refusal to trust anyone with power. He appointed a mayor and a governor for Nablus who are two men in the same seat trying to do the same job. Arafat plays them off against each other to keep control."

Mr Naserallah and many others in the Nablus elite attribute much of the violence to rivalries between factions of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades leading the "resistance" in the city and about half a dozen criminal gangs operating under the guise of the brigades.

Some are loyal to the mayor, others to the governor.

Few people want to speak about it publicly, but most politicians and businesspeople believe that the armed men loyal to the mayor are the real problem.

"There is a group of brigades supported by the mayor," Mr Naserallah said. "They are the group responsible for creating chaos; they are the group who initiate fights. There is a great suspicion here that they are a group allowed to run around by Israel because they cause chaos. The real brigades do not trouble the people."

The mayor disagrees.

"I believe there are some gangs that are blackmailing the people, holding them hostage," he said. "They are the ones who killed my brother, but they also kidnapped the governor's brother. They are putting to shame the good name of the resistance movements. They are nothing to do with me."

Mr Shaqa, who is a member of the PLO executive committee and the national security council, estimates that nearly 40 Palestinians have been killed by other Palestinians in the anarchy of recent months, almost as many as have died in the city at the hands of the Israelis.

Ahmad Shaqa, his brother, was on a visit from Jordan when he was ambushed as he drove the mayor's car, leading to a widespread assumption that the mayor was the real target.

In the preceding weeks leaflets had been distributed in the name of the al-Aqsa Brigades accusing the mayor of collaborating with Israel.

The governor has also been the target of attacks. His car has been torched, and one of his brothers was kidnapped in August during a rampage through the city by armed men who burned cars and homes and installed "checkpoints" after one of their number was killed in the neighbouring Balata refugee camp. The murder appears to have been revenge for a shooting a few weeks earlier.

Mr Aloul's brother was swiftly freed after intervention by Mr Arafat, confirming to many the link between the violence and the al-Aqsa Brigades, which recognise the Palestinian leader as the ultimate authority.

A restaurant belonging to another of Mr Aloul's brothers was burned to the ground.

Gangs



"There are gangs posing as the resistance," Mr Aloul said. "I would not like to say who is supporting these gangs but they are helping the occupation. That is why those that support those gangs are collaborators with Israel."

Last month gunmen shot at the car of a PLO executive committee member, Tayseer Khalid, who described the attack as an extension of the culture of "vigilantism, chaos and hooliganism" engulfing Nablus.

A former fire brigade chief, Firas Amleh, was shot in the legs after leaflets were distributed in Fatah's name accusing him of corruption.

Amneh Abu Hijleh, a 37-year-old mother of three young children, was one of the innocents killed. She was shot on the steps of a pharmacy in July during an attempt by Palestinian gunmen to kidnap rival faction members.

Shouib al-Shashir was shot in his furniture shop by gangsters who mistook him for a member of a rival group.

Thirteen-year-old Firas Aghbar died when he walked into a gunbattle between factions on his way to the barber's shop.

The Palestinian author Hani Masri said in an article in the newspaper al-Ayyam that the greatest threat to the people of Nablus was not the occupation but "the chaos, the lawlessness, the lack of security and people taking the law into their own hands".

He put most of the blame on the Palestinian Authority because, he said, it had the capability to act but had not done so.

Many people in Nablus, already enduring grinding poverty, curfews and Israeli military incursions, agree.

"There is a severe lack of trust in the PA, in its leadership and its administration," said Mr Naserallah.

"Many times I have called on Arafat to make a dramatic change in leadership in Nablus. Ultimately, Hamas and Islamic Jihad benefit from this, because they are outside the circle of fighting within the PA and Fatah, so they are gaining a lot of support."