Earlier this week, some 150 Fatah gunmen stormed a number of schools in Nablus and drove out hundreds of students who were taking high school matriculation exams.The peaceful PalArab territories also enjoyed some equally calm incidents:
The gunmen were protesting against Abbas's refusal to allocate secret halls for them so that they, too, could sit for the exams, without risking being arrested or killed by the IDF. The gunmen were later allowed to sit for the exams in special halls.
One of the teachers said most of the gunmen cheated.
"They opened books and copied the answers word by word," he said. "We were afraid to stop them because they were carrying M-16 rifles."
Also on Tuesday, in the first protest of its kind since Hamas took control over the Gaza Strip, the families of dozens of Hamas supporters demonstrated in Nablus to demand the release of their sons from PA prisons.
Palestinian policemen fired into the air to prevent the demonstrators from approaching the city's central prison, witnesses said. No one was hurt.
Meanwhile, Fatah gunmen in Nablus kidnapped Shaher Saed, general-secretary of the Palestine General Federation of Trade Unions.
Sources in the city told The Jerusalem Post that Saed was abducted from his downtown office. They said he was released unharmed later in the day after being ordered by the gunmen to resign from his post.
Gaza is not being left out of the fun:
The Executive Force and members of Hamas' armed wing, the Al Qassam Brigades, stormed on Tuesday the house of the former director of general intelligence and member of Fatah's revolutionary council, Maj. Gen. Amin Al Hindi, in western Gaza City, Palestinian sources have reported.Back in Fatahland:
Workers in a hospital run by the UN agency for Palestine refugees (UNRWA) in the West Bank city of Qalqilya have launched a strike following threats by gunmen against one of their coworkers.Looks like it may be time for more peace initiatives!