Calm returned to the Gaza Strip on Tuesday after deadly internecine clashes and police protests over dire insecurity problems, as Israeli soldiers shot dead a Palestinian mother of five in the West Bank.
”Things are calm and we hope that everyone will respect the law and public order,” said interior ministry spokesperson Tawfiq Abu Khossa.
On the first day of the holy Muslim month of Ramadan, the streets of Gaza City were quieter than usual with no-one seen carrying weapons other than security officers, an Agence France Presse correspondent reported.
Amid spiralling insecurity following Israel’s pullout from the Palestinian territory on September 12 after a 38-year occupation, the interior ministry last week began implementing a law banning the carrying of weapons in public.
Despite pledges by the Palestinian Authority to tackle the growing lawlessness as kidnappings and armed clashes become increasingly frequent, the situation has only worsened.
Three Palestinians, including a policeman, were killed and more than 50 others wounded late on Sunday in clashes pitting police officers against members of the chief Islamic fundamentalist faction, Hamas.
Sunday’s incidents were the first deadly internecine clashes in Gaza since Israel’s army withdrew from the Gaza Strip.
On Monday, dozens of armed policemen burst into the Parliament building in Gaza City to protest against the Palestinian Authority’s failure to clamp down on deteriorating insecurity and the killing of their colleague on Sunday.
The parliamentary session, conducted via video-conference link between deputies in Gaza and in the West Bank town of Ramallah, ended with MPs ordering Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas to appoint a new government.
They voted overwhelmingly for the Palestinian Authority leader to reshuffle his Cabinet within two weeks, accusing the current administration of being incapable of restoring security.
Abbas is acutely aware that failure to put the Gaza Strip in order will weaken international support for the creation of an independent state also incorporating the occupied West Bank.
However, he has not been obliged to fire his Prime Minister Ahmed Qorei, after MPs discarded a formal censure motion against the government which would have seen the premier step down immediately.
Despite the calm in Gaza, Israeli soldiers on Tuesday shot dead a Palestinian mother of five at a checkpoint in the northern West Bank after she stabbed a female soldier in the face.
Haifa Hindiya, a 36-year-old married woman, was killed after she slashed the female officer in the face with a knife near the town of Nablus.
”During an attempt to control the Palestinian… thinking she might stab someone else, the force opened fire at the lower part of her body. The Palestinian woman was wounded,” she said.
Palestinian medical sources said the mother died of her wounds as she was being treated. The soldier was lightly to moderately wounded and evacuated to an Israeli hospital, an army spokesperson said.
Hindiya’s death comes after a string of Israeli shootings of Palestinian militants in the West Bank. A teenage boy was also shot dead near the same town on Friday. An investigation has been opened into his death.
Palestinian militants repeatedly use such attacks to justify their own campaign of violence, which they say will only end when Israel withdraws from all occupied Palestinian land, not just the Gaza Strip.
With Jews celebrating Jewish new year until sundown on Wednesday, Israeli security services have been placed on high alert amid fears of possible attacks from Palestinian militants. – Sapa-AFP