Palestinian in-fighting provokes despair, frustration http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=worldNews&storyid=2006-10-04T061429Z_01_L03862017_RTRUKOT_0_TEXT0.xml&WTmodLoc=NewsArt-L1-RelatedNews-2
Wed Oct 4, 2006
By Nidal al-Mughrabi and Mohammed Assadi
GAZA/RAMALLAH (Reuters) - In recent months, Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza have dealt with food shortages, power cuts, unpaid salaries, clan rivalries and almost daily clashes with Israeli troops.
Now, when it seemed things couldn't get that much worse, they find themselves on the brink of civil war in a power struggle between the governing Hamas movement and President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah group. In two days of fighting between the two rival and well-armed factions, 12 Palestinians have been killed and more than 100 wounded, and there are few signs the months-long political dispute at the center of the violence is about to die down.
The bloodshed marks the worst internal fighting in more than a decade, since the Palestinian Authority was founded in 1994.
For ordinary Palestinians it is not only a sour reminder of how far they have to go before there is an independent state, it also comes at a time when the vast majority are marking the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, a time of solidarity and peace.
Rather than heading out into the streets to visit friends and relatives when they break the fast each evening after sunset, many are too scared to venture out of their homes.
"It is not worth risking our life to visit someone," said Mohammed Azizi, 37, a taxi driver in Gaza City.
"What is happening is a terrible shame and Fatah and Hamas are responsible. We are losing the sense of security. The house is on fire," he said.
TIT-FOR-TAT
In the West Bank, where 2.4 million Palestinians live, residents viewed the breakdown in security as the latest, deepest step toward out-and-out lawlessness, compounding the difficulties already created by months of unpaid salaries.
"People do not have money. People will fight each other again and again," said Imad Hamaydeh, a 29-year-old pharmacist in Ramallah. "We will witness four years of anarchy."
Most of the Palestinian government's 165,000 employees have gone largely unpaid for the past seven months because of a cutoff of international aid after Hamas came to power in March.
Hamas, an Islamist militant movement, is regarded as a terrorist group by Israel, the United States and the European Union, prompting all three to impose restrictions.
The non-payment of salaries has had a powerful knock-on impact on the economy, leading many to sell jewelry, gold and other heirlooms just to keep providing for their families.
Fatah, which held power for years before Hamas won January elections, has blamed its rival for the problems, saying Hamas politicians are incapable of governing and should be forced out.
Those tensions, and a failed attempt in recent weeks to form a united Fatah-Hamas government, led to this week's clashes.
What makes the internal fighting all the more galling for Palestinians is that it deflects attention from the battle they have waged for 39 years against Israel's occupation of the West Bank, making them look hopeless and incompetent.
"Fighting amongst ourselves is worse than the Israeli occupation," said Ghazi Khdeir, 43, a West Bank plumber. "Both the killers and those killed should go to hell."
In Gaza, the faction rivalry even threatens to break apart households, where it is not uncommon for one brother to be a member of Hamas and another to belong to Fatah.
With tensions threatening to continue boiling over, some said the only solution now was to dissolve the Hamas-led government and hold new elections.
"The bloodshed has to stop," said Samir Abu Zarour, 49, a doctor at a government hospital in Nablus in the West Bank.
"The only winner right now is the occupation. The only way out is early elections, otherwise a dark future awaits us."
© Reuters 2006. All Rights Reserved.