Gaza's New Strongmen

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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 M-16 and AK-47 assault rifles. And Abu Samhadana has become a strident critic of Abbas and his henchmen, whom he views as ineffectual. "The reason for the chaos is the weakness of the Palestinian Authority," he says. "It is weak because it is totally corrupt."

Abu 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 also launched a series of kidnappings of foreign aid workers and journalists in what amounted to gangster-style extortion bids. Take the kidnapping of Muhammad Ouathi, a French-Algerian journalist. Members of the brigades swiped Ouathi in Gaza City on Aug. 14. Abu Samhadana stepped in to negotiate, persuading Palestinian officials to release, in return for the liberty of the journalist, 10 of his men held by the police for a raid on Gaza's central jail in January.

The violence seems likely to escalate. Arafat's family will no doubt eventually take revenge. And armed Fatah factions, including the Salah ed-Din Brigades, have compiled a hit list, according to senior Fatah officials, that includes party officials and cabinet ministers suspected of corruption. Fearing for their lives, several senior Fatah officials fled last month to Jordan. In Nablus, a former Interior Minister narrowly escaped being assassinated Sept. 20 by a group of masked men. Meanwhile, the leader of the Fatah militia in the West Bank town of 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.