”The police want to arrest Sheikh Ahmed Yassin.” The news carried quickly through the ranks of Hamas militants overnight Wednesday.
Thousands turned up on the streets outside the Gaza City home of the crippled founder of the Hamas Islamic movement by car or on foot, sometimes travelling miles in the driving rain to take up the cudgels against their own Palestinian police force.
Late in the evening, gunfire broke out between Sheikh Yassin's supporters, armed with Kalashnikovs and M-16 assault rifles, and the police, who had arrived to place the Hamas founder under house arrest upon the orders of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.
Arafat is under pressure from Israel and Washington to crack down on Hamas whose military wing has admitted responsibility for last weekend's suicide bombings which left 25 Israeli civilians dead.
However the strategy is very high risk, with Hamas militants claiming early Friday that Palestinian police had stoked further anger by shooting and wounding three Palestinian youths during the confrontations.
In face of this potentially disastrous public uprising, police withdrew from the immediate area while remaining in the vicinity.
The Hamas militants covered the windows of the home of the group's founder with posters reading "Martyrs" in memory of the hundreds of Palestinians killed in 15 months of violence.
Palestinian men in army fatigues, their faces covered by black scarves, wandered around toting rifles, ammunition belts and mobile phones.
But there were also hundreds of ordinary militants, and even children in the volatile crowd.
Pre-dawn the protesters were served with tea, fruit and dates before the onset of another day of fasting during the holy Muslim month of Ramadan.
"We are all angry at the corrupt Palestinian leadership," said one militant in the crowd. "We are trying hard not to use our weapons because we do not want a civil war. It's the police who want one, not us."
"We will stay here for as long as it takes," said another.
"The Palestinian police who fired on us don't understand anything," offered Mohammed, 13.
One man rallied the troops with a microphone.
"We are ready to do anything to defence Sheikh Yassin," he yelled in a speech punctuated by cries of "Allah Akhbar" -- god is great.
Earlier the militants used loudhailers from a nearby mosque to urge the police to leave the area.
"If Arafat chooses to obey the orders of (Israeli Prime Minister Ariel) Sharon and arrests our leaders, we are ready to kill Arafat and his henchmen," said one protester.
And there wouldn't be just one candidate to do it, there would be a thousand," he added -- AFP
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