Palestinian officer under fire
Palestine, Local, 8/27/1998

The latest standoff outside Hamas member Imad Awadallah's house in Ramallah between members of the Palestine Legislative Council and guards from the preventive security in the West Bank is seen as a silent war between various factions of the Fatah mainstream movement within the PLO.

Many Fatah members in the PLC refrained earlier in the month from furnishing their traditional support to Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's new Cabinet. PLC members Jamal Shati, Musa Za'bout, Abed Rabbou Abu Oun, and Suleiman Al Roumi said they were beaten up by plain-clothes security men outside the Awadallah house, placed under a strict closure for more than ten days.

The closure, security sources said, was a means to pressure Imad Awadallah to give himself up to Palestinian security forces. Imad escaped two weeks ago from his Jericho prison cell were he was being held on suspicion of killing his Hamas fellow, Mohyiddin Sharif.

In Tuesday's clashes, the four PLC members and a number of journalists present at the sit-in-strike were treated in local hospitals for beating wounds they sustained. On Wednesday, PLC member Hatem Abdul Qader, another Arafat critic, was rushed to hospital after he too was beaten up by Palestinian security guards.

Abdul Qader said he arrived at the Awadallah family house with the intention of meeting the family members. Arafat had ordered the siege to be lifted immediately and instructed his security men to allow meetings between the Awadallah family members and their visitors.

Colonel Jibril Rajoub, commander of the preventive security in the West Bank whose men were allegedly involved in beating up the PLC members, said the legislative council and its members enjoy a great deal of respect among the Palestinian people and among the various security branches of the Palestinian government. However, he blamed PLC members for not coordinating their visit to the Awadallah family house in advance. Rajoub said he was surprised by the amount of criticism voiced by PLC members after the incident.

Rajoub, for many the strong man of the West Bank, drew fire from various circles within the Palestinian government because of the independent and sometimes ruthless method of operation he applies against Palestinian opponents, including Hamas members. This time, many believe, Arafat seems to be sending a signal to Rajoub.

Arafat met with his presidential secretary general, Tayyeb Abdul Rahim, and PLC members Nabil Amr and Kamal Sharafi to discuss the affair but excluded Rajoub from the meeting. Nabil Amr, who serves as a state minister for parliamentary affairs, was the first to call Arafat and inform him of the fiasco outside the Awadallah family house. Many members of the PLC not only criticized the fact that Rajoub's men beat up their colleagues but said that the siege on the Awadallah family was not justified from the beginning.

Others even went further to demand that Rajoub be suspended from his post as head of preventive security in the West Bank. Abbas Zaki, member of Fatah's Central Committee and of the PLC, said that beating PLC members and attacking journalists "is an act that belongs to the underworld."

The most outspoken critique of Rajoub was Marwan Kanafani, formerly Arafat's press advisor, who said that "PLC members were luckier than ordinary Palestinians in that they obtained the press and media coverage they needed."

Previous Stories:
  Council members beat up in front of Imad Awadallah residence, Palestine to investigate   (8/26/1998)
  Hamas suspicious of the escape of Awadallah   (8/18/1998)
  Troubling questions facing Hamas: militancy and diplomacy   (4/13/1998)

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