Gaza’s Bloody Weekend
Palestinians furiously battle their biggest enemy: one another.
It was a bloody weekend of confrontation between Hamas and Fatah, in which 11 people were killed and more than 90 — including 12 children — were wounded in the Shujaiyyah neighbourhood, east of Gaza City, bringing back the scenes of horror thousands of Gazans are already used to experience. Except this time the blood couldn’t be blamed on Israelis.
Fear was in the air: shops were closed and few people dared to out and pass through the checkpoints Hamas security forces established around the region.
The escalation proves once again that the word “fracture” is not strong enough to describe the Palestinian political situation. In a dual-world Palestine divided between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, there are different problems, different priorities, different governments and a deep divergence on the latest crisis.
Despite Fatah-controlled Palestinian Authority efforts to keep business as usual, officials and observers fear the Gaza clashes could quickly spread to the West Bank and expose the ruling party’s internal divisions.
In Gaza, however, some analysts believe the Hamas military operation is being inflated by the foreign media and the instability is not as bad as it seems.
It was bad enough for more than 180 Palestinians — presumably Fatah members — who escaped the Strip and fled to Israel, following a special request from Fatah president Mahmoud Abbas to allow them to enter Israeli territory.
They had good reason to want to flee. Anyone taken prisoner by Hamas can expect harsh hospitality and a severe violation of human rights — and it’s not much better in the West Bank for Hamas activists. Last week, two human rights groups found that both groups have tortured prisoners, and that three prisoners have died in detention in Gaza and one in the West Bank.
What made this weekend’s conflict different was that it transcended the level of politics into something resembling a mafia family struggle. The battle began on Saturday, when Hamas militants stormed Gaza City searching for members of the Hilles clan, one of the biggest and most influential of Gaza’s families, known for its traditional support for the secularists from Fatah.
According to Hamas sources, the family was behind the explosion of a car bomb that killed six militants last week near the beach. The Hilles claim they have no connection to the bombing and accuse the Islamists of using the incident to bring down their powerful and wealthy clan. The family patriarch, Ahmad Hilles, has already threatened that Hamas will pay for the blood spilt — which could lead to a newly-escalated conflict in the region.
Gaza journalist Sameh Akram Habeeb, who witnessed the weekend violence, told PJM that the clashes and the fleeing Fatah members represent the “grande finale” of the Hamas coup when it took power a year ago.
“The neighborhood is under siege and Hamas is still hunting for suspects, which makes the atmosphere really tense, despite the illusion of calm. Everything can change at any time. The Hilles were Fatah’s last bastion of support in Gaza and Hamas has been hunting them for a long time. They are not only a big family, but they have many affiliates in the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade and other military organizations with arms, a lot of ammunition and close contacts to the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah. Hamas claims that these people must be brought to justice, but many innocent civilians have paid the price of this confrontation with their lives.”
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Rinat Malkes is a Tel Aviv-based journalist.
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19 Comments
1. Mike:It’s all Bush’s and the Jews fault. They just won’t leave alone the religion of peace. After all, aren’t the Palistinians the most educated and peaceful of people??. Yes, that has to be it, it’s the Jews, and Bush.
Aug 4, 2008 - 4:57 am 2. Moultrie:Ah SO, Condi Rice and the DoS gave all that $$, weapons and mil training to the new AraFAT, Aboo-boo wiht the intent to distract them away from attacking the Israelis…such brilliance…Condi for Prez (of Zimbawe)!
Aug 4, 2008 - 5:27 am 3. David P:Notice it’s the Israeli’s and not the fellow Arab brethren in Egypt who extend quarter to the Fatah terrorists.
Aug 4, 2008 - 6:40 am 4. Michael:I wish them total victory
Aug 4, 2008 - 6:46 am 5. CR:What is the deal with Palestinians? They don’t get along with each other, and they don’t get along with other people. I don’t get it and I never will. The more I learn, the more confused I become about their situation. I think we should just leave them alone, stop sending aid, stop talking to them, and let them kill each other until there are none left to worry about.
Aug 4, 2008 - 6:59 am 6. J.J. Sefton:Okay. I confess. I’m a member of the international communist, capitalist, bolshevik, menshevik, neo-con, media controlling, blood sucking, defiler of children, women and animals, causer of global warming, global cooling conspiracy – I DID IT.
Jeez, I forgot, what did we do? No matter. We’re Joooooz! We did something wrong. We exist.
Aug 4, 2008 - 7:12 am 7. Tariq:The world is a mess…unfortunetly more and more people are suffering because of their bad leaders, hostages of weapons, ideologies, misconceptions about religions. And I mean both palestinians and israelis, americans and iraqis, as well as syrians, lebanese, africans, you name it.
Aug 4, 2008 - 7:52 am 8. Cletus:What suprises me that there are people in this world that still believe in good x evil, purity of arms x terrorists. They believe that one religion is better than the other, but forget that who kill is not religion but men.
I don’t like using words to describe one race is better than the other. There’s not such thing. There’s a assassin, a murderer, bad guys in any society, regardless of religion, race or nationality.
11 people died, and 90 were injured, including 12 people. Of course, there aren’t dozens of NGOs, diplomats and news anchors crying out against the violence, condemning people and groups and calling for this to stop. Why could that be? Oh yeah, because there aren’t any Jews involved in this round of violence.
Aug 4, 2008 - 8:02 am 9. Zouheir:I dont think so that was Bush’s or Israel’s fault .
They may be the reason but it was the palestinian them selves fault ,
the fault was not who makes the Traps , but the fault is who falls into it.
all Palestinians recognize Israel is their field enemy , and America is the Political enemy , Otherwise they fall in trap every time .
Aug 4, 2008 - 9:08 am 10. David P:Tariq, Cletus,
OPEN Democratic Societies with FREE PRESS are the easiest to criticize b/c of the unlimited & unfiltered free flow of information whether factual or fiction. Comprehension of the greatest injustices of today are constricted by social conditions, such as authoritative rule. Armchair pundits find it easy to selectively berate a nation that allows everyone to voice their own opinions with impunity.
Aug 4, 2008 - 9:50 am 11. uburoisc:Zouheir:
And all observant Americans recognize the Muslim fundamentalists as the existential and cultural enemy of Western Civilization. Glad we got that out of the way, now you can go back to making car bombs from old appliances, beating your property, selling drugs and slaves, and hiding behind women and children.
Aug 4, 2008 - 10:33 am 12. rocketeer:The Palestinians as a group are amongst the most vile in human history, and certainly the most vile in existence today. No one wants to have anything to do with them as is evidenced by how the rest of the Arab world treats them. They are a “cause-celeb” amongst the intellectual elite of our country and they are useful tools of the other Arab countries to help foment antisemitism. At some point, Israel is going to have to treat them like a foreign government and declare war on them to blow them further back into the stone-age so that they can no longer spread their little brand of Islamic hell here on earth.
Aug 4, 2008 - 11:44 am 13. Laborskate:The Palestinians have spent several generations teaching their children that hatred and murder are to be revered. They are now reaping the results of such upbringing.
Aug 4, 2008 - 12:24 pm 14. Martin:Condy, president of Zimbabwe? Why not of the USA, that deserve her? Open racism, Moultrie? Wow… Only about black people or also latins, arabs, etc..? May we know?
Do you know the American Ambassador at UN is an arab? Sorry for giving you this bad news…
By the way: have you heard about a man called Obama?
Aug 4, 2008 - 2:09 pm 15. Richard Landes:posted something at my blog on this:
Aug 5, 2008 - 1:33 am 16. Gaza’s Bloody Weekend : WebNotícias:http://www.theaugeanstables.com/2008/08/04/gaza-anomalies-blow-pcps-circuits-result-the-sounds-of-silence/
[...] RINAT MALKES | PAJAMAS MEDIA [...]
Aug 6, 2008 - 4:20 am 17. ella:Martin
Countries have heads of states and political systems they deserve. So is with palestinians, so is with US, so is with EUrope.
Aug 7, 2008 - 7:57 am 18. Once again there is an “escalation” of violence in Gaza « Blogging for a free world:Even if you think USA deserve Condi as president, US people think differently because they did not elect her.
You know, if wishes were horses……………but they are not, get used to that fact.
[...] Pajamas Media » Gaza’s Bloody Weekend. [...]
Aug 8, 2008 - 11:12 am 19. Mary:What a torrent of comments that convey hate! There is the same sort of prejudice here which some are accusing the Palestinians and Arabs of. It only exacerbates this age old conflict. How are we similar to each other? What is the historic basis for the conflicts and how can that help us? See David Hulme’s writings and others at http://www.Vision.org – offers perspective – worth a look. I’ve learned a lot.
Aug 8, 2008 - 5:17 pm