Assassins’ guns killing hopes of Gaza deal

Press, 11 February 1981, Page 19

Assassins’ guns killing hopes of Gaza deal

By

PHILLIP JACOBSON,

“Sunday Times,” London

Somewhere in the teeming refugee camps of the Gaza Strip, a squad of assassins is selecting its next victim. Their target probably knows he is in danger, may even have a shrewd idea who will kill him, yet there is very little he dr the Israeli occupation authorities can do.

Twelve Gaza Arabs have been shot dead in the last three months, but Israel’s extensive security apparatus has failed to come up with a single arrest.

The Israelis believe that the killings were the work of . a small Palestinian cell intent on ramming home the grim message that in Gaza, as in the West Bank, Arabs who associate themselves with the Camp David peace procass can expect swift reprisals. Intimidation is nothing new. to the 430,000 people

— some 60 per cent in refugee camps — crammed into this' narrow coastal strip between Tel Aviv and Israel’s border with Egypt. It was to Egypt, of course, that the Strip once belonged.

The murders cannot compare with the violence that once made Gaza synonymous. with bloodshed, but the Israeli authorities frankly concede -that their failure to catch the killers

their, relations with the local population. It is also damaging the credibility of their Camp David commitments to introduce a degree of self-government. Without co-operation from prominent Arabs, the autonomy plans are doomed. The Israelis may well be right about the intimidatory purpose of the murders, but there is a puzzling .inconsistency where the victims are concerned. The only obvious “collaborator” was Muhammed Abu Warda,. a former taxi driver, elevated by the occupation government to an official position in one of the largest camps. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, in Beirut, had called for his execution, and claimed responsibility for it (just as it did after the Imam of Gaza was stabbed to death in broad

after a Cairo trip to congratulate the jubilant Sadat. Two of the recent killings have also been claimed by the P.F.L.P, but none of the victims, apart from Abu Warda, was an obvious target. A bar owner, a billiard hall proprietor, a couple of drug traders — it is quite conceivable that they had

links with Israeli security, but- they were distinctly small fry. In Gaza, .people are understandably wary about talking freely. Some fear reprisals themselve?; others, like a well-con-: nected doctor-businessman, argue that the real crisis is not the bloodshed but the constant, demoralising of life under

Israeli occupation, the fear that one’s orange groves and one’s liberty are under greater threat than ever. . Street,- searches, midnight raids, the banning of meetings, restrictions cn movement: “We nave never felt more insecure here. If the Israelis prevent us pursuing liberty in such harmless areas, how

can they expect us to believe what they say about crucial things like autonomy? Day-to-day existence convinces us that what they really want is permanent control of our homeland.” The Israelis assume that a small group ox terrorists was infiltrated among the 150,000 people who last year crossed at the new El

Arish border gate with Egypt, Gazans who disagree with this theory point to the activities of the Muslim Brotherhood in Gaza since the Iranian revolution. Islamic fundamentalists have become more aggressive, hectoring Arab women who do not wear Islamic costume, and threatening cafes where alcohol is served to accompany “sinful” pastimes like billiards (one such establishment was smashed up recently).

Israeli and Arab observer?. agree that the “Gaza fir :t” option, once widely touted, is now a non-run-ner. It hinged on the supposed differences between Gaza . and the' * eternally troublesome'West Bank —- the absence of .Muslim or Jewish holy places in Gaza, the small number of Israeli settlements in the Strip and “ th® relative

abundah'ce of water, the material prosperity and improved social services which Israeli rule has undoubtedly brought. Gaza, retains strong historical and cultural ties with Egypt and, the theory went, could be per' . suaded to accept a separate automony deal which could serve as a “model” for the West Bank. An effective combination of the. assassin’s gun and economic infiltration by the Palestine Liberation Organisation— P.L.O. funds have been used to secure growing influence in local institutions •— has convinced most prudent inhabitants of the Strip otherwise.