GAZA CITY, July 18 (AFP) - The new head of the Palestinian general security service, Musa Arafat, said Sunday that he had no intention of resigning despite widespread protests that have accompanied his appointment.
"I will not resign from the position to which I have been appointed," he said in his first reaction to the appointment on Saturday by Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, who is his uncle.
"The only one who can fire me is the one who appointed me," Musa Arafat told reporters here.
Thousands of people demonstrated in the Gaza Strip on Saturday night against the appointment while the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, an armed offshoot of Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement, described him as the epitome of Palestinian corruption.
Asked what he thought about the protests, Arafat merely said that "we respect the opinions of others."
He also pledged to put an end to the security chaos which reached a nadir on Friday with the abduction of six people, including the now sacked police chief General Ghazi Jabali and four French aid workers.
"The violations on Friday were carried out by irresponsible people that have no understanding of the national duty," he said. "But we will fix this issue in our own way.
"This is not the first crisis that the Palestinian cause has faced but it will pass."