Gaza's State of Emergency
As Gaza falls into Hamas' hands, a reporter looks at the cause of the fighting.
June 14, 2007 — -- Hamas militants today seized three key security compounds in a move to complete the Islamist's movement's full takeover of major Gaza city security apparatuses.
The Saraya security installation, the preventive security compound and the headquarters of the Palestinian intelligence were earlier in the hands of the rival party, Fatah. With this significant development, Gaza, the embattled and impoverished city, has fallen completely into the hands of the Islamist movement Hamas.
Fierce battles have been raging between the two sides since Monday. Street executions, mutual brutal killings and deadly violent shooting attacks were the dominant scenes in the Gaza Strip. By noon today, the death toll had reached at least 100, and the numbers of dead and injured are rising rapidly. Gaza hospitals are now operating without water, electricity or blood units.
Also today, amid the anarchy, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas dismissed the Palestinian government and declared a state of emergency.
The Palestinian Fatah movement, Hamas' partner in the Palestinian government, has described Hamas' latest moves in the Gaza Strip as an attempt at a coup against the Palestinian legitimacy. The Palestinian president, who is also the head of Fatah movement, has described the situation in Gaza as "madness." Egyptian mediators have been on the ground in Gaza trying to bring Hamas and Fatah to cease the mutual killings, but to no avail.
Israel has been worriedly monitoring the collapse of law and order in Gaza very closely. The Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is considering the deployment of an international force along the Egyptian-Palestinian border. He is also worried about regional implications should Hamas take control of the Gaza Strip.
So why is Israel concerned about Hamas ruling the Gaza Strip? Why is Egypt intimately involved in efforts to bring the warring sides to cease the factional fighting? Who is Fatah and what does the Islamist movement Hamas want?
The Palestinian Fatah movement was established in 1958 by the late Yasser Arafat. Soon the revolutionary movement became the sole representative of the Palestinian people, including hundreds of thousands of refugees who fled or were forced to flee their homes and lands in historical Palestine on the eve of the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948.
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