Palestinian Authority rebuffs Israeli demand for militant crackdown
AFP
Date: 05-04-05
GAZA CITY (AFP) - Palestinian security forces will not institute a campaign to disarm militant groups despite the demands of the Israeli government.
"The Palestinian Authority will not touch the arms of the resistance but it will take swift and decisive measures against who are committing abuses on our streets in the name of the resistance," General Rashid Abu Shbak, the head of preventive security, told a press conference on Wednesday.
Israeli demands for Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas to actively crack down on militant groups such as Hamas are growing louder.
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said earlier this week that Abbas was "completely avoiding taking significant steps to fight the terrorist organisations".
Abbas has managed to persuade the factions to observe a less than watertight truce but has baulked at taking on the likes of Hamas and the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades for fear that such a move could provoke a civil war.
Abu Shbak stressed that the security services were "serious" about their quest to re-establish the rule of law in the Palestinian territories.
Abbas made putting an end to what he called the "armed chaos" on the streets of the West Bank and Gaza one of the main planks of his January election campaign.
"We will not allow anyone to be above the law or impose their views on citizens by the force of arms," Abu Shbak added in a veiled reference to Hamas.
He also warned that the Palestinian Authority would not tolerate "the slightest violation of the Cairo arrangement", referring to an agreement reached at a meeting in the Egyptian capital in March when all the factions agreed to a truce until the end of the year.
Three Hamas members were arrested by the Palestinian security forces on Monday night as they prepared to fire rockets into southern Israel. They were released the next day after Egyptian mediators brokered a compromise.
Source
FAIR USE NOTICE
This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. |
|