Hamas Fighters Tighten Hold on Gaza
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip _ Hamas forces tightened their hold Wednesday on the last remaining Fatah strongholds in the Gaza Strip as forces loyal to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas fled to Egypt and appeared to be on the verge of collapse.
Hamas’ disciplined Islamist fighters used an underground tunnel to bomb a government military compound in Khan Younis, took control of the main north-south road running through the Gaza Strip, and warned that no place _ not even the president’s oceanside headquarters _ was off limits.
Hamas gave Fatah gunmen in northern Gaza until sundown Friday to turn over their weapons.
“I do believe it is the end of Palestinian democracy,” said Ayman Shaheen, a political science professor at the Fatah-allied Al Azar University in Gaza City.
Shaheen said the ongoing fighting was likely to end with an historic geographic rift dividing Hamas and Fatah and that Abbas, also known as Abu Mazen, would be left powerless.
“Abu Mazen will be a symbolic president in Gaza without any power,” said Shaheen. “I am afraid that two entities will be established for Palestine _ one in the West Bank and one in Gaza.”
Nearly 70 people have been killed in four days of fighting during which Hamas has routed Fatah fighters with swift and surprising ease throughout this narrow coastal region that is home to 1.4 million Palestinians.
By sundown Wednesday, Abbas loyalists were holding onto a rapidly shrinking number of symbolic strongholds, including the presidential compound. Abbas was in the West Bank.
“Any place that commits any kind of aggression against Hamas has to be targeted,” said Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum. “Abbas’ compound is now a place for this terrorism and these violent groups and these Fatah militants are protecting themselves in this place in order to target Hamas members.”
Speaking from his primary headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah, Abbas called the situation in Gaza “madness.” But there appeared to be few indications that Egyptian mediators trying to end the crisis were making any headway.
In a sign of how dire the situation was becoming, Egyptian and Palestinian sources said that nearly four dozen gunmen loyal to Abbas fled to Egypt to avoid the fighting.
Earlier in the day, Hamas militants used a tunnel dug under the central government compound in the city of Khan Younis south of Gaza City to blow up the three-story building used by Abbas Preventive Security forces.
The tunnel was more than 150 yards long and had taken two to three months to dig, Palestinians said, an indication that Hamas has long been planning for this showdown.
While most Palestinians holed up in their homes, hundreds of demonstrators marched through the deserted Gaza City streets calling for an end to the violence.
Women, young children and men with Palestinian flags draped over their shoulders urged the two sides to put down their weapons. One banner read: To the decision makers: History will judge you. The street will not forgive you.
As the demonstrators marched towards a Hamas-controlled area, Hamas militants opened fire on the protest, sending them scattering for cover. Fatah gunmen raced into the crowd and returned fire with assault rifles and a .50 caliber machine gun mounted on the back of a pickup truck.
When the shooting subsided, the demonstrators continued on to try and break a Hamas siege around the home of a prominent Gaza City family led by Atef Bakr. As they approached the area, Hamas gunmen again opened fire, killing two and injuring five others.
After the shootout, Bakr used Hamas human shields to escape the Hamas siege, according to eyewitnesses.
Bakr apparently managed to capture four young Hamas members and offered to free the men if he and his sons were allowed to escape the siege.
Bakr then loaded his supporters into a pickup truck and tied two Hamas members to the hood and two to the roof. As he drove out of the area, Hamas opened fire on the truck. Bakr sped to the presidential compound, sparking a short but intense gunbattle.
Several of Bakr’s sons were lightly injured, but they all managed to find safety.
The Hamas members tied to the pickup were outraged that their own gunmen had opened fire, shouting “We were deceived!” as they were taken into custody by Abbas forces.
As the fighting flared, the United Nations suspended operations after two of its local workers were killed in the crossfire.
John Ging, head of the United Nations refugee operations in the Gaza Strip, called the fighting “the worst” he had seen and “unprecedented in the scale and nature.”
“Palestinians are fighting Palestinians. They’re killing Palestinians. They’re killing innocent Palestinians,” said Ging. “It’s just a tragedy on top of all the other tragedies the Palestinians have had to bear.”
The situation is also likely to have a crippling impact on Israeli-Palestinian efforts to resolve their decades-long dispute. Mark Regev, a spokesman for Israel’s Foreign Ministry, said it was too soon to dismiss Abbas and Palestinian moderates. But he suggested that the situation was grim.
“The gunmen of Hamas have the upper hand in Gaza and it’s not good for the Palestinians, it’s not good for Israel and it’s not good for peace,” said Regev.
Shaheen criticized Israel and the United States for not doing enough to provide Abbas and his pragmatic government with money and military resources to battle Hamas, which has used smuggling tunnels between Gaza and Egypt to build up its arsenal.
Abbas aides said that the government has been requesting outside support for months, but that little had been done to help.
One Israeli source, speaking on a condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the talks, said Israel had approved one military shipment for Abbas, but that it was reluctant to provide more since Hamas militants had gotten their hands on some of the weapons.
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(c) 2007, McClatchy Newspapers.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
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PHOTOS (from MCT Photo Service, 202-383-6099): MIDEAST
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