The rally, attended by thousands, was seen as a show of strength by Arafat’s Fatah faction which was driven from power in the Gaza Strip during fierce fighting with Hamas last summer.

Fatah accused Hamas of opening fire on the crowd but Hamas said its forces had responded to gunfire from Fatah gunmen. This clash was the worst since a ceasefire was imposed by victorious Hamas gunmen in June.
Hamas argued that it had no wish to disrupt the rally because it also wanted to celebrate the life of Arafat, regarded by Palestinians as the leader who had put their cause back on the world’s agenda.

“We honour and respect Yasser Arafat because he... refused to give up the rights of our people in this holy land,” Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum stated.

President Mahmud Abbas, who is also head of Fatah, has orchestrated a series of events to honour Arafat who died in a Paris hospital on November 11, 2004, of a brain haemorrhage. Abbas intended that these events would give a semblance of popular support to the Palestinian Authority ahead of a US-sponsored conference at the end of November in Annapolis.

Most Palestinians have little faith in Abbas and do not believe the conference will deliver anything positive for them.

Hamas, which opposes a peace deal with Israel, says Abbas does not have a mandate to negotiate and argues that Israel has already torpedoed the conference by stating flatly that it will not discuss final status issues such as borders, the future of Jerusalem, Jewish settlements and the fate of Palestinian refugees.

Operation clean-up

Meanwhile Palestinian security forces began to hunt down and detain outlaws in the restive West Bank city of Nablus as part of a Western-backed push to revive the peace process. Since the beginning of the month, hundreds of Palestinian police have deployed in Nablus to carry out the first stage of a campaign to collect illegal weapons and suppress party and clan militias.

Israel has said it will not implement the “road map”, the moribund step-by-step plan for the emergence of a Palestinian state, until the Palestinians meet their commitments to disarm and detain on militants. The crackdown could divide Fatah because most of the gunmen operating in Nablus and the rest of the West Bank are from Fatah’s military wing, who disagree with Abbas’ decision to pursue peace with Israel without the goad of resistance to the occupation.