MIDDLE EAST: The murder of a journalist this week underlined the extent of lawlessness in Palestinian areas. Nuala Haughey reports from Nablus about its effects on ordinary people
Farez Shakhshir admits he has thought about avenging the death of his brother, killed seven months ago when he was innocently caught up in a shoot-out between rival Palestinian gangs at his workplace in the West Bank town of Nablus.
Mr Shakhshir (45) is frustrated with the slow pace of the local police investigation, even though the suspects are well known.
The father of six children despairs that his town has descended into chaos, with armed gangs brazenly controlling the streets and flouting the law.
"It's a lawless place," he says. "But it wasn't always like this. It became like this and the reason is that there is no security now, there are just gangs. Every leader runs his own group.
"As long as ordinary citizens like me see machineguns in the hands of people who act like the Mafia then they must be afraid. We live in a double fear - we are afraid of these people and afraid of the Israeli army."
As in many other towns in the Palestinian territories, the Nablus gangs - often elements of militant groups fighting Israel and sometimes even linked to the Palestinian security forces - have been behind a sharp rise in robbery, extortion, abductions and murder. This chaotic situation has been evident throughout the last 3½ years of the intifada against Israeli occupation.
The Palestinian police chief for Nablus district, Col Rabih Khundaji, acknowledges that citizens under his protection take the law into their own hands out of frustration with his security forces.
However, he blames the Israeli military for impeding the work of his roughly 1,000 men, by preventing them travelling to work, raiding their compound and, crucially, banning them from carrying weapons on the streets, a ban which affects all Palestinian police on the West Bank.
"This leads to the conclusion that the situation here is dictated by the armed criminal and the Israeli army, not by the Palestinian security forces," he says, seated at a large desk in his office in front of a life-size poster of a smiling Mr Yasser Arafat, the iconic Palestinian leader. "How can a policeman try to provide the citizens with security when he feels insecure himself?"
The Israeli army rejects this scenario, instead accusing the Palestinian police of failing to fight terrorism and maintain law and order in the territories, with the result that the military has to do their work for them.
The last two suicide bombers to strike in Jerusalem emanated from Bethlehem, even though Palestinian police there were until recently permitted to carry weapons, an Israeli security source pointed out. One of the bombers was himself a Palestinian policeman.
Nablus, considered by the Israeli military as the "terror capital" of the West Bank, is subject to frequent military raids.
"There is nothing that currently warrants allowing for an armed police force. They have enough capabilities to take positive steps. It's not an issue of capability, it's an issue of intention," the security source added.
The anarchic situation in Nablus came to a head last week when its mayor, Mr Ghassan Shakah, announced his resignation, warning that the town was headed for destruction. (Last November, Palestinian gunmen shot and killed Mr Shakah's brother in an attack believed to have been aimed at him.) "Our society has deteriorated to the point where I have employees submitting their letters of resignation because they don't feel protected in their jobs anymore," he told journalists during a passionate address at a press conference on Thursday.
"In some villages the mayors can't cut off power to people who don't pay for it because if they do they'll come and shoot the mayor's power lines out in revenge." Mr Shakah said the security ills of his town of about 130,000 people were to a large extent due to the Israeli occupation, which manifests itself in the ongoing security closures, military incursions and other measures.
But Mr Shakah also pointed an accusing finger at his own people. "We must ask the question whether our performance is good enough to end the occupation. We must address the performance of the Palestinian Authority, the security services, the municipalities, the ordinary citizens, and ask ourselves if we are doing enough."
The security chaos in the territories is at least partly a by-product of the turmoil within the Palestinian Authority, which is riven with internal power struggles, crippled by a deepening financial crisis and fast losing the confidence of its people.
Some analysts warn that the authority, effectively the civil service of the territories, is on the brink of collapse. Many fear that such a development would lead to a complete breakdown in law and order and create a political vacuum, which Islamic extremist groups would try to fill.
The internecine warfare within the Palestinian territories stepped up a notch this week when Mr Khalil Al-Zaben, a long-time associate of Mr Arafat, was gunned down in Gaza City in what is believed to have been a power struggle between rival gangs with ties to Mr Arafat's Fatah movement.
"There seems to be a fair amount of disarray and it's getting worse in recent months, partly because of the lack of strength at the centre of the Palestinian Authority," said one informed observer.
"Arafat's ability to control the different elements may be weakening, and of course the more atrocities are carried out against the Palestinians, the easier it is for maverick groups to flourish."
A critical issue for the Palestinian Authority is a desperate lack of money. Because of budget shortfalls in recent months, the vastly over-staffed agency has been forced to sell shares in its mobile telephone company and take out bank loans to pay the salaries of its 140,000 employees. These incomes form the backbone of the ragged economy in the territories, especially as the number of Palestinians legally working in Israel has dropped from 150,000 before the outbreak of the current intifada in September 2002, to 20,000 today.
Israel until recently was withholding much-needed tax revenues owed to the authority, and international donors want to see reforms within the PA in return for the $1.2 billion aid package it has sought to alleviate its current financial crisis.
A hopeful sign came this week when, after long delays, Mr Arafat approved a key reform to allow the authority's 56,000 security force personnel to have their salaries paid directly into their bank accounts. This will replace the current system of cash payments, a practice widely seen as an invitation to corruption.
However, there is little sign of a breakthrough in the ongoing power struggle between Mr Arafat and his Prime Minister, Mr Ahmed Qurei, largely over security reforms. Palestinians widely view PA members as time-servers and cronies and recent surveys show lack of confidence in Mr Qurei's government and the PA in general.
"People have lost their respect for the Palestinian Authority," says Mr Shakhshir in Nablus. "If the head of a family is unable to provide for his children and protect them and impose his authority on them, then no one will respect him."
Four out of five people surveyed last December by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research in the West Bank and Gaza Strip said PA institutions were riddled with corruption, while 89 per cent supported calls for fundamental reforms.
Critics of the PA say it is paying the price for years of lack of respect for democratic systems and the slow pace of internal reform. However, many Palestinians also accuse Israel of deliberately undermining the authority to force it to accept hard concessions.
"The danger now is that the PA could collapse completely, they [the Israelis] don't seem to realise they need them. They could end up destroying them and find out that all they have got are war lords and Islamic sheikhs to talk to," one West Bank source said.
However, Israel rejects these claims, placing the bulk of the blame for the woes of the PA on Palestinians themselves. A government spokesman said: "Definitely Israel has an interest in there being one authority, one command . . . preventing terrorism against Israelis."