Word: samhadana
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Dates: during 2005-2005
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Among the brawniest is Abu Samhadana, whose shifting network of allegiances illustrates the difficulties Abbas faces in trying to restore order. During the intifadeh, the Salah ed-Din Brigades gained the respect of Gazans by confronting Israeli soldiers when the official Palestinian military fled. But the group ran its refugee camps, towns and villages as gangster fiefs. With the Israelis gone, locals say it has increasingly turned to racketeering and extortion. Despite Abbas' ban on the public display of weapons, members of the gang can still be seen on Gaza's streets, openly toting their...
...Samhadana's men have become more brazen in going after their enemies. Early last month, gunmen besieged the house of Moussa Arafat, a top security adviser to Abbas, dragged him into the street and shot him 23 times. Members of the Salah ed-Din Brigades claimed responsibility for the killing in a statement released through a website, saying it killed Arafat because he was a "collaborator and corrupt." Senior Palestinian security officials say they believe the gunmen were persuaded to carry out the hit by Arafat's rivals within Fatah. Over the summer, branches of the Salah ed-Din Brigades...
...Jenin said two weeks ago that he no longer considers himself bound by Abbas' "calmness" agreement with the various Palestinian factions. Nowhere among the Fatah men is there the trust that binds Hamas activists. "I don't exclude the possibility that the Authority will kill me," says Abu Samhadana...
Defusing groups like the Salah ed-Din Brigades won't be easy. Unlike Hamas, they have no political program that Abbas can negotiate over. Abu Samhadana says his "main priority" is to gain sinecures for his men in the Palestinian Authority's security forces. So far, he has been offered jobs for 500. That's not enough, he says, and complains that the remaining 1,500 "will be like the rest of the Palestinian people--unemployed." The town of Rafah is particularly desperate: it has a 66% unemployment rate, compared with 25% among Palestinians in general...
...bloated public payroll that eats up 62% of his budget, and World Bank officials are leaning on him to fire some of his nearly 60,000 security officers, not hire more. If economic opportunities stay bleak, the gunmen may well push Gaza deeper into lawlessness. Even Abu Samhadana is worried that his men, having realized their goal of ending the Israeli occupation of Gaza, may cause even more ruination to Palestinian society if their vigilantism remains unchecked. "We must all distinguish between weapons of resistance and weapons of chaos," he says. The question is whether it's already too late...