Originally published on March 21, 2004
<http://www.nydailynews.com/news/wn_report/story/175797p-153084c.html>
Hamas eyes takeover if Israelis leave Gaza
By MAHMOUD HABBOUSH in Gaza City and CORKY SIEMASZKO in New York DAILY NEWS WRITERS
Hamas, the militant group specializing in suicide bombings, is poised to take over the Gaza Strip the minute Israel withdraws its troops, Palestinian sources say. Hamas founder and spiritual leader Sheik Ahmad Yassin announced recently that he already has a plan to administer Gaza.
Yassin's declaration is a thumb in the eye of Yasser Arafat, the head of the Palestinian Authority - which is nominally in control of the Gaza Strip but remains trapped in the West Bank.
The Israelis insist, as they have since the Palestinian uprising erupted 3-1/2 years ago, that Arafat still has the power to keep Hamas in check.
"The argument that the Palestinian Authority cannot crush the terrorist cells is nonsense," a government official said. "They have 24,000 men in Gaza, which is more than enough to handle Hamas."
Dr. Ghazi Hamad, editor in chief of the Hamas-related al-Risala weekly, said the Israelis are deluding themselves. "Chaos is controlling the situation in Gaza," he said. "The PA is weak, it's absent from the streets and the immediate impression you get is that the armed groups are in control."
Maj. Gen. Saeb Al-Ajez, the Palestinian Authority's security commander in the northern Gaza Strip, admitted as much. He said his forces have been destroyed by raids and he can no longer count on the loyalty of all his men.
Just last year, Al-Ajez said he discovered 100 of his security officers were also in cahoots with Hamas and another militant group, Islamic Jihad.
"When guerrillas are strong, the PA gets weakened," he said. "Those defectors might lead to the collapse of the Palestinian Authority."
And in a territory where Hamas is popular and has taken over the Palestinian Authority's role of providing social services, Al-Ajez says he can fire the turncoats, "but we can't arrest them, because people will strongly resent this."
The Palestinian Authority's impotence in a chaotic territory where 1.3 million Palestinians are packed into an area slightly larger than Queens was evident on a recent rush-hour morning.
A Hamas militant in an unregistered car ran a red light and was stopped by a Palestinian police officer. But when the cop tried to ticket the driver, the militant hurled a couple of grenades and took off.
That insult to a living symbol of Arafat's authority sparked a back-alley gun battle that killed a bystander and injured 16.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said last month he was weighing pulling out of Gaza, but negotiations with the Palestinian Authority were scuttled by a double suicide-bomb attack in Israel last Sunday that killed 10 people
To stop rising violence, Arafat - at the urging of Egypt - had his police fan out through Gaza to enforce the ban on carrying weapons in public and impose order on the raucous roads. He also hopes to stop the rampant theft of water and electricity. So far, Arafat has had little success.
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