Police Balk at Stopping Gaza Terror

The Palestinian chief of police has questioned whether his officers, who begin patrolling the Gaza border today to stop attacks on Israel, are prepared to confront Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

Commander Siab al-Ajez said some of his men either sympathised with the Islamist resistance groups or were too afraid to prevent them making attacks.

He said the Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas's order to the security forces to curb the almost daily rocket attacks from Gaza was designed to placate Israel and the US. Many of the rockets hit the Israeli town of Sderot, where a teenage girl was left brain dead last week.

Hundreds of Palestinians will begin patrolling Gaza's border fence today while the 8,000-strong police force in the Gaza Strip seek to keep armed men off the streets, prevent the manufacture of rockets, and arrest suicide bombers.

"The situation is difficult. The will to execute the orders is not what it should be in our officers," he told the Guardian.

"Sometimes they are killed by the Israelis or stopped at checkpoints and humiliated, and we come to them after all that and say they must follow these orders.

"There are officers who are not convinced of what they are doing. They could be present in certain areas and just close their eyes."

Cmdr Ajez is not the only Palestinian official to see the deployment as largely symbolic. Mr Abbas is concentrating his political efforts on ending the attacks by a political agreement with Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

"Deployment is a procedure to reduce the attacks but it is not the solution," Cmdr Ajez said. "The solution is a package of ideas, first to find a political solution for the occupation and a solution for the economic and security problems. These are adding petrol to the fire."

Armed groups such as the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades say they are not disturbed by the prospect of a confrontation with Palestinian police and troops.

"There's a big part of al-Aqsa membership already working in the security forces," said Abu Mohammed, a Gaza leader of al-Aqsa. "It's voluntary work to protect the Palestinian people. We want all the Palestinian security forces to protect the Palestinian people, not fight them."

Israel alleges that the Palestinian security forces let through the bombers who attacked the Karni border crossing in Gaza last week, killing six Israelis.

Cmdr Ajez tells of a case in which his men let a suicide bomber go because "if our officers were to shoot him his people would come and kill them".

He added: "When there are men who decide to commit suicide, how do you stop them? The man comes and lifts his shirt and says: 'Here is my explosive. What are you going to do?'

"I think you are going to swallow your tongue and not say a word, believe me, because there are people behind him and if you stop him it's like a bullet in your own head."

Cmdr Ajez expressed a belief widespread among Palestinians that the Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, is pressing Mr Abbas to confront Hamas and its allies because he wants to create a civil war.