A Bloody Taste of Civil War

Yasser Arafat's security forces in the Gaza Strip, nearly all of them veterans of the battle against Israel, faced a new foe last week: the enemy within. They answered the challenge from Gaza's Islamic militants in precisely the same way that the Israeli occupiers had done -- bluntly, and with lethal force. By the time the bloody fraternal clashes had simmered down, 15 Palestinians were dead, another 200 were crowding the hospitals and hundreds more were behind bars.

More than that, the people of the Gaza Strip were filled with a dread that worse was still to come, that the countdown for a cataclysmic collision among Palestinians had begun. "The signs are alarming," said Eyad Sarraj, a human- rights activist in Gaza. "We have all the ingredients for a civil war." Certainly the bloodshed marked a new low for Arafat's already troubled administration. Self-rule has brought the Palestinians of the Gaza Strip little but disappointment, and their frustration is increasingly aimed at Arafat. Having turned his guns on compatriots, the Palestinian leader now faces a huge new credibility problem with his people.

The potential for fratricide has always loomed in the background as the Palestine Liberation Organization sought to impose its authority, especially in the heavily fundamentalist Gaza Strip. Until recently, Arafat's self-rule administration had maintained a compact with the militant Muslim groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad, which adamantly oppose his peace accord with Israel and are trying to sabotage it with violence. The extremists focused their attacks on Israel and areas of the West Bank still under Israeli control. Arafat, for the most part, left them alone within his jurisdiction in the Gaza Strip and Jericho, despite Israeli pressure to crack down.

Now the hands-off policy has broken down. Earlier this month, Islamic Jihad for the first time publicly threatened to attack Arafat's security personnel. Then the group struck hard within the Strip itself, when a suicide bomber bicycled into an Israeli army position, killing three soldiers. At the same time, Islamic Jihad activists were holding a provocative rally in Gaza City, brandishing rifles and promising more mayhem. Palestinian Justice Minister Freih Abu Middain declared that the militants had "crossed the red line." The Palestinian Authority banned unlicensed demonstrations and rounded up some 200 Islamic Jihad members.

Last Friday, Arafat's security men were tipped off that after noon prayers, worshippers at the Palestine Mosque in Gaza City, a fundamentalist stronghold, were planning to protest the recent arrests. About 50 Palestinian soldiers and policemen gathered outside and removed loudspeakers that had been attached to four vehicles to broadcast slogans during the march.