Palestinian Civil War Watch - 5

The hits just keep on coming.

RAFAH, Gaza, Dec. 23 (UPI) -- A senior Palestinian security official was in critical condition Saturday after being shot by gunmen in the southern Gaza town of Rafah, officials said. His bodyguard and a 9-year-old girl were also wounded, officials said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for Saturday's drive-by shooting of Col. Hassan Jarbouh, 33, YNet News reported.

Security officials allied with moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas blamed the attack on the Islamic militant group, Hamas.

Bodyguard Ahmed Mansour and 9-year-old Amal Jaber, a bystander, suffered moderate wounds, officials said.

Earlier, Palestinians reported gunfire near Abbas' office in Gaza City, YNet News said.

That is not all. It appears that Palestinians are not only killing each other (or trying to), but also burning down Gaza.

The anarchy in the Gaza Strip, which has focused on the political struggle between Fatah and Hamas up until now, has taken on a new, disturbing form.

The Palestinian Authority said that a new group, which is most likely inspired by al-Qaeda, has begun acting out against 'secular' targets that supposedly offend Islam.

Anonymous persons ignited a CD shop in Khan Younis Saturday night, causing tens of thousands of dollar worth of damage.

Activists of the group, called "The Sword of Islam" went to the trouble of warning the store's owner Nidal Abdin before blowing up his shop.

The activists told him that they intended to blow the store up if he continued to sell CD's and cosmetics that "offend morals and the Muslim religion."

The PA believes that this act is also the doing of the new group that has begun activity in the past few months on the Gaza Strip.

A few weeks ago another businesses selling CD's and mobile phones was set on fire in Khan Younis. In another incident that occurred in Gaza City, anonymous persons set fire to an internet café, claiming that it is used as a meeting place for "forbidden and immoral relations."

The Sword of Islam organization published a few announcements in which it declared that its men will continue to harm anyone who causes damage to the Islamic identity and the Islamic tradition of the residents of the Strip. So far, the organization is holding up to its threats.

Sources in the Palestinian Authority fear that these attacks on businesses on religious background will only worsen, following the deteriorating political and security anarchy on the Strip, and the void created by security forces, since part of them are now on strike.

The Taliban have arrived in the Palestinian territories. This will lead, over time, to ethnic self cleansing.

These fellers do know their enemy. Western culture and civilization. It is only a matter of time before they go after satellite dishes. They are already doing cell phones. Brilliant. Just brilliant.

I'm still of the opinion that, despite the cost to the Israelis, the Gaza evacuation, engineered by Sharon, was one of the most brilliant of the moves in Israel's war against the Palestinians. The Israeli retreat has dislocated the Palestinian war efforts. As well planned retreats often do.

The Arab American News gets it:

Israel's soldiers are not going to march into Gaza and truck all the inhabitants away. The strategy is simply to make the place into a garbage dump picked over by destitute people. The current ceasefire will do nothing to relieve the siege imposed physically, financially, commercially by Israel, the U.S. and the E.U. Israel and its accomplices are sentencing Gaza's occupants to a living death in situ, with actual death meted out each day to "terrorists" and those unfortunate enough to be in the line of fire, like the family in Beit Hanoun or the school teacher by the minibus filled with children (a near miss).

The fratricide going on in Gaza and the West Bank territories has caused a significant weakening of international sympathy for the Palestinians. The Palestinians are doing their best to make themselves look bad in the eyes of the international public.

The terrorists are terrorizing each other.

The Israeli withdrawal left a power vacuum. Palestinian factions are fighting it out to determine who will wind up on top. There will come a time when the Israelis are asked to re-occupy Gaza - there have been lone voices calling for this already. In fact when the Gaza pull out was announced the Palestinian government said that the Israelis couldn't do that without a peace treaty. The Israelis ignored them.