The security chaos blighting the Gaza Strip claimed its highest-profile victim Wednesday when local strongman Mussa Arafat, an advisor to Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas, was assassinated by militants.
Abbas led condemnation of the Popular Resistance Committees' killing of Arafat, a cousin of the late Yasser Arafat, that undermined calls for calm on the eve of Israel's departure from the territory after a 38-year occupation.
Israeli Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz recommended that the departure of troops from Gaza be brought forward by three days to Monday after soldiers guarding empty Jewish settlements shot dead a Palestinian teenager.
Arafat, feared by many in Gaza for his brutal regime as head of national security, was shot 23 times by gunmen who had laid siege to his home in the south of the city before dawn. After a near hour-long gunfight between the assailants and his bodyguards, he was shot in front of his family and then dragged into the street where gunmen continued to pump bullets into his body.
His killers then fled, taking hostage his son, Manhal.
After a visit to the Arafat family home, Abbas convened a meeting of his national security council, which includes prime minister Ahmed Qorei and interior minister Nasr Yussef, who decreed a state of alert among the security services.
The Palestinian leader vowed that the killing "will not hinder efforts to impose order and the rule of law".
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