Crowds of Palestinian supporters of Osama bin Laden attacked their own security forces in the Gaza Strip today in the most violent challenge to Yasser Arafat's administration since shortly after it was established in 1994. At least two people were reported killed and scores injured after police opened fire.
As rioting spread this evening, the Palestinian Authority declared a state of emergency in the Gaza Strip, an impoverished, 147-square-mile band of territory fenced off by Israel. Hundreds of police officers carrying clubs patrolled the streets, all demonstrations were outlawed and Gaza's two main universities were ordered closed.
The demonstrations were triggered by the U.S.-led attack on Afghanistan and Palestinian sympathy for bin Laden, the suspected terrorist mastermind who praised the Palestinian cause in a taped statement broadcast around the world after the attacks began Sunday night. Simmering anger with Arafat's leadership also appeared to be fueling the protests.
Arafat had ordered his police forces to quash any demonstrations sympathetic to bin Laden in order to maintain U.S. support and distance himself from extremism. His lieutenants instructed Palestinian journalists not to cover any such events or transmit images of them to the media.
Some analysts said the rioting could alter the character of the Palestinians' current uprising against Israel, now in its second year. Others said the uprising would continue undiminished, but that Arafat's leadership, already facing severe challenges from Islamic opposition groups and others, would be shakier than ever.
As rioting continued, Arafat's security forces were reported to have made more than 120 arrests. That news cheered Israeli officials, who for months have demanded that Arafat detain Islamic militants. They were also heartened by reports this evening that Arafat had ordered the arrest of anyone who attacks Israelis, an order that would likely include members of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, militant groups that have carried out a string of bombings against Israelis.
"Better late than never," said Raanan Gissin, spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. The militants "did what they wanted like a state within a state. Arafat tried to say it was Israel's problem, but now it's his problem and that's why he's taking action. It's a matter of survival for him."
In the heart of Gaza City, the largest Palestinian town, automatic weapons fire rang out for more than four hours at midday as Palestinian police battled protesters, some of whom appeared to be firing back with guns of their own. Plumes of black smoke billowed skyward from burning cars and gutted stores, and ambulances raced from the scene of the fighting bearing the wounded, their sirens screaming.
Several Palestinian police stations in neighborhoods and refugee camps near the city were reported to have been set on fire or besieged by rioters. The offices of Palestinian Airlines, a symbol of Arafat's rule here, were gutted and burned.
Journalists at the scene and other witnesses ranked the violence with some of the worst clashes between Palestinians and Israeli forces during the past year of fighting.
In his statement Sunday, bin Laden vowed there would be "no security for America until there is security for Palestine." That inspired many Palestinians, whose feelings of impotence on the international stage make them especially suggestible to anyone claiming to champion their cause.
"It is the duty of every Palestinian to support bin Laden because he's backing our cause," said a 22-year-old art student at al-Najah University in the West Bank city of Nablus who gave his name only as Qusai. "Whoever supports us is our friend."
But Palestinian Authority officials today condemned the attacks on the United States. "We don't want crimes committed in the name of Palestine," said Information Minister Yasser Abed Rabbo, according to the Associated Press.
Today's rioting was the worst among Palestinians since November 1994, when Islamic militants challenged the Palestinian Authority just months after it was established under the Oslo peace agreement with Israel. In that unrest, Arafat's forces killed at least 11 people, and Islamic militants have avoided direct challenges to his leadership ever since.
During today's violence, Arafat was in Cairo and then flew to Bahrain.
Palestinian officials were embarrassed by scenes of celebration that broke out in some neighborhoods immediately after the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States. After Sunday's strikes on Afghanistan, officials of the Palestinian Authority predicted confidently there would be no demonstrations against the United States or in sympathy with bin Laden. Arafat allied himself with Iraq during the 1991 Persian Gulf War and is determined not to isolate his movement that way again.
But at 10 a.m., about 1,000 students spilled out from the gates of the Islamic University of Gaza and began marching west on 30th Street, a major Gaza City thoroughfare, toward the offices of the Palestinian Legislative Council. Some of the students displayed posters of bin Laden and chanted anti-American slogans.
Islamic University, with about 14,000 students, is a stronghold of Hamas, the Islamic Resistance Movement, a radical group that has carried out a string of suicide bombings against Israelis. The Islamic students were joined by students from neighboring Al-Azhar University, which is affiliated with Arafat's mainstream Fatah movement.
Hundreds of Palestinian riot police blocked the march, and the students began pelting them with stones and bottles. The police drove them back several hundred yards into the walled Islamic University campus. At around 11 a.m., as the students continued to hurl rocks and bottles at the police from inside the gated campus, the police opened fire with military rifles.
Ali said the rioting could continue "for a few days until people can vent their anger at the Palestinian Authority. And if they shoot people again, things will explode."
In a statement, Ghazi Jabali, the Palestinian police commander and a close confidant of Arafat, blamed the casualties on masked individuals inside the university compound who opened fire first. The students denied it. Palestinian journalists said most of the gunfire, though perhaps not all, came from the police.
The dead included a 13-year-old boy and a 21-year-old student, Anwar Akel, whose older brother Imad, a top Hamas militant, was killed by the Israelis in 1992. A Palestinian police officer was reported to be clinically dead.
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