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Arafat Appoints New Acting Security Chief

Posted on: Monday, 13 October 2003, 06:00 CDT

Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat delivered yet another blow to his new premier Monday, appointing an acting security chief in the face of Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia's intense opposition.

Qureia, in office just over a week, has already threatened to resign several times over disputes with Arafat, but his success or failure in office could decide the fate of stalled peace negotiations with Israel intended to end three years of violence.

Meanwhile, U.N. officials reported that hundreds of Palestinians were left homeless after their homes were demolished during a three-day Israeli operation in the Rafah refugee camp in Gaza. Israel was searching for weapons smuggling tunnels.

Also Monday, former Israeli peace negotiators and Palestinian officials said they had reached agreement on a possible peace deal that could be the basis of eventual official negotiations.

Under the unofficial deal, Palestinians would get a state in 98 percent of the West Bank and all of Gaza. They would be given some land in Israel's Negev Desert to compensate for the 2 percent that Israel would keep. Jerusalem would be divided and most Palestinian refugees would be kept out of Israel, according to negotiators.

Israeli leaders blasted the agreement as an end run that damaged the government's peace efforts.

The Palestinians' own government has been in disarray for several days as Arafat and Qureia engaged in an increasingly bitter dispute over the legitimacy of an emergency Cabinet and who would be the new interior minister - their top security official.

Arafat had appointed longtime ally Nasser Yousef interior minister when he named an emergency government Oct. 5. But Yousef defied Arafat by refusing to take part in a swearing in ceremony last week, and Arafat withdrew his support.

Qureia continued to support Yousef, saying that dropping him now would embarrass the new government.

Regardless, Arafat appointed Hakam Balawi, a senior official from his ruling Fatah party as acting security chief Monday, a Palestinian official said on condition of anonymity.

Palestinian officials said the dispute over Balawi's appointment would be raised Tuesday in a meeting of the 12 member National Security Council, which Arafat heads.

Qureia had already lost his battle to get the Cabinet, formed by Arafat decree, approved by the Palestinian legislature. And he has threatened to quit once the term of his temporary government expires in about three weeks. However, that left him time to settle his differences with Arafat, Palestinian officials said.

If Qureia follows through with his threat, he would be the second prime minister to give up the job amid disputes with Arafat in two months, casting doubt on whether Arafat is willing to give up enough power to allow any premier to succeed.

The tension reflects disagreement over the amount of control Arafat would retain over Palestinian armed forces. Israel and the United States insist Arafat hand over authority, charging that he is tainted by ties to terror.

The United States had hoped the prime minister would implement the "road map" peace plan, which envisions an end to three years of Israeli-Palestinian violence and the creation of a Palestinian state by 2005. But all efforts to restart negotiations remain on hold until a stable Palestinian government is formed.

While Palestinian officials in Ramallah were arguing in recent days, 1,240 Palestinians in the Rafah refugee camp on the Gaza-Egypt border became homeless during a three-day Israeli military raid there, U.N. officials said Monday.

The raid was punctuated by bouts of heavy fighting between Israeli soldiers and masked Palestinian gunmen. Eight Palestinians, including two children, were killed, and dozens were wounded.

A total of 120 houses were demolished and another 117 buildings were damaged, during the Israeli operation - part of an effort to uncover and destroy weapons smuggling tunnels - in the largest demolition of houses in a Gaza raid in three years of fighting, according to the U.N. Relief and Works Agency.

Municipal officials said water and sewage treatment systems in Yabena were destroyed as well.

The area targeted was the camp's Yabena neighborhood, next to the Gaza-Egypt border. Several of the houses were blown up, while the remainder were razed by army bulldozers.

The U.N. agency will provide US$500 in cash assistance to each displaced family. More than 7,500 Palestinians in Rafah, and nearly 12,000 in all of Gaza, have been left homeless since the Israeli-Palestinian violence began three years ago, the agency said.

Israel estimated that only 30 houses had been destroyed during the raid, which began around midnight Thursday and ended Sunday morning. Some of them had smuggling tunnels beneath them, others were being used by Palestinian gunmen or were boobytrapped, said Capt. Jacob Dallal, an army spokesman.

"All these places were the points from which hostilities were launched," he said. "If they were taken over by gunmen, then it's regrettable. But it's the gunmen's fault."

Some of the houses also may have been damaged by Palestinian gunmen using anti-tank guns and rocket-propelled grenades.

Some of the newly homeless disputed the military's account.

Soliman Awaja, a 49-year-old taxi driver, said he was asleep in the two-story house where he lived with his family and his brother's family - 18 people in all - when soldiers with dogs stormed the house and demanded everyone leave.

"I called on my neighbors to help me save my family and evacuate the house, but the soldiers fired at them," he said. A bulldozer came and demolished the house, forcing the family to seek refuge in a U.N. tent camp.

The raid was part of stepped-up military activity following an Oct. 3 suicide bombing that killed 20 Israelis in a restaurant in the port city of Haifa.

Military officials said they discovered three tunnels during the raid. Palestinians planned to use the tunnels to bring in more advanced weapons, like anti-aircraft missiles, that could have a strategic impact on the conflict, the officials said.

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