Palestinian turmoil over Gaza

Nabil Amr went home for dinner Tuesday after finishing a television interview in which he was critical of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. After dinner, a gunman appeared on his open balcony and pumped out seven bullets, shooting him twice in the leg.

The shooting of Mr. Amr - a prominent former Palestinian cabinet minister trying to form his own political party - is a brutal indication, say analysts, that divisions over who will control the Palestinian Territories are turning more violent. Amr has questioned Mr. Arafat's judgment by urging cooperation with Israel's disengagement plan.

Differences over how to deal with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's stated intention to withdraw from the Gaza Strip and small settlements in the West Bank is providing the spark for an unparalleled flare-up in violence inside Fatah, Arafat's mainstream faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization. The shooting also raises fears that the Palestinian Territories are slipping into deeper disorder.

In addition to vocalizing his disenchantment with Arafat's leadership, Amr - who served as the Minister of Information under Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) - was known here to be trying to corral disillusioned Fatah members into starting a new political party.

"Nabil Amr wanted to form another party, a party of giving in and saying, 'we don't have another choice.' But they [the assailants] were mad over his statements, not his attempts to form a new party," says Hani Masri, a columnist at the Al Ayyam newspaper and an official in the PA's Ministry of Information. Masri, who condemned the attack, says he does not know precisely who "they" are, but says that they might have taken the initiative to do what they believed Arafat would have wanted.

"What Nabil Amir has been saying is we have to commit ourselves to what it says in the roadmap," the US-drafted guidelines for restarting the peace process, "regardless of what Israel does. It's implicitly putting the burden on Arafat, saying we could be doing more to end the conflict."

Amr's oldest son, Tarek, had just gone upstairs to bed late Tuesday night when he heard shots. "I ran down and saw my father covered in blood," says Tarek Amr, as he waited for news of his father at Sheikh Zaid Hospital Wednesday. "I carried him to the car and brought him to the hospital." He would give only one word for the current state of affairs inside the Palestinian Authority: "misery."

Teary-eyed relatives and friends stood outside the emergency room throughout the morning, as important Palestinian figures filtered in and out to check on Amr's health. Doctors said the bullets had shattered his leg so badly and had caused so much blood loss that he would need more serious care, and sent him to a hospital in neighboring Jordan for further treatment.

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