BICOM

Palestinian police clashed with protestors in the West Bank city of Nablus yesterday, after a suspected gang ringleader was beaten to death in custody.

Demonstrators marched from a university to the centre of the city. The Palestinian news site Safa said that they called for the resignation of Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Rami Hamdalah, Nablus Governor Akram Rajoub, and Palestinian security head Nidal Abu Dukhan. Clashes apparently took place as stones were thrown at PA police, who fired tear gas at the crowd.

The clashes were sparked by the killing in custody of Ahmad Halawa, a former PA police captain and leader of the Fatah affiliated al-Aksa Martyrs Brigade. Halawa had been arrested for being the ringleader behind the killing of two PA policemen in the casbah area of Nablus last Thursday.

PA security forces and local gangs have been vying for control of some areas of Nablus, including the casbah. PA police are also contending growing gang and gun crime in other Palestinian-controlled areas of the West Bank.

Nablus Governor Akram Rjoub last week said that Halawa had “provided the killers… with weapons and ordered them to carry out killings”. After he was arrested yesterday and taken to the city’s Junaid prison, Halawa was reportedly surrounded and beaten by PA security personnel. Although colleagues intervened, Halawa was taken to Nablus’s Rafidiya Hospital where he was declared dead on arrival.

At a cabinet meeting yesterday, Prime Minister Hamdallah called Halawa’s killing “exceptional” and ordered that an investigative committee examine the incident.

Although Halawa was not affiliated with Hamas, the group’s spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri described his death as an “execution”.

He added: “These crimes reflect the bloody nature of the PA security forces.”

Hamas and Fatah, the latter the dominant party in the PA, are set to contest Palestinian municipal elections in October.