Brussels, 05/01/2006 (Agence Europe) - The EU High Representative for CFSP, Javier Solana, has called on the Palestinian Authority to do everything in its power to restore peace and order in the Gaza Strip where, just three weeks from Palestinian legislative elections to be held on 25 January, the security situation is increasingly precarious. On Wednesday, at the Rafah border crossing where the EU established civilian monitors to oversee border controls last November, several dozen armed Palestinian activists (members of the Al-Aksa Martyrs' Brigade) had used a bulldozer to knock down the wall between the Gaza Strip and Egypt, calling for the release of their leader who had been arrested in connection with the kidnapping of three British citizens. This was followed by a gunfight during which two Egyptian soldiers were killed and 30 others injured, according to security service officials cited by Associated Press. Earlier, some forty masked men had seized the main voting office in Rafah, the premises of the Palestinian Parliament, a court of law and another building. According to Mr Solana's spokesman, the security of the European observers has never been threatened.
The electoral campaign for the Palestinian legislative elections on 25 January began on Tuesday with the main movements promising to combat corruption. The Fatah, the Palestinian Authority's party, launched its campaign near Yasser Arafat's tomb, stressing that, if it were to remain in power, it would endeavour to lay the foundations for the future State of Palestine and combat corruption. The Islamic movement, Hamas, the main rival of Fatah, symbolically chose to launch its campaign before the house of its founder, Ahmad Yassin, who was assassinated in 2004 by Israel. The Hamas states its wish to improve public finance and to fight corruption which, it says, exists within the Palestinian Authority. In the meanwhile, in Jerusalem East, the Israeli police prevented two well-known candidates, Hanane Achrawi and Moustapha Barghouthi, from campaigning. The leader of the European election observer mission, MEP Véronique de Keyser (Belgian Socialist), said such Israeli intervention in Jerusalem East does not augur well as it could bring the holding of elections into question. “It is not a good sign”, she said, reported by AFP. The Palestinian Prime Minister, Ahmad Qoreï, has already asserted that the elections will not take place if a good outcome in Jerusalem East is not guaranteed. “Jerusalem is an occupied town and all candidates must be able to conduct their campaign there in full freedom”, he said. The president of the Palestinian National Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, also warned that he would suspend the organisation of legislative elections if the Palestinians of Jerusalem were not authorised by Israel to take part (see the Quartet's declaration on this subject in EUROPE 9099).