BEIT LAHIYA (Gaza Strip): “Everything will be rebuilt,” soothes Ismail Haniya in homes battered by Israeli firepower. But the man who leads the Palestinians’ Hamas government may have to turn to the heavens to find the cash to do so.
In the late afternoon and not wishing to attract too much attention, the Palestinian prime minister whose offices were bombed in Israel’s offensive last week inspects damaged homes in the northern Gaza Strip town of Beit Lahiya.
Israeli troops rolled out of an outskirts neighbourhood of the sprawling town on Saturday after a two-day offensive that evoked memories of Israel’s 38-year military occupation of the Gaza Strip which ended last September.
Surrounded by a handful of bodyguards, Haniya treads gingerly through a crush of journalists, passing between destroyed and damaged homes without ceremony and to the surprise of residents in the Hamas-controlled municipality.
“Everything will be rebuilt, God willing,” Haniya assures them, sitting next to a homeowner and cradling the man’s youngest child, who appears as frightened by the commotion as by the Israeli offensive in which 40 Palestinians have died.
In a corner of the sitting room, with fallen debris littering the floor, an old woman mumbles into her veil. She ignores the prime minister as the rest of her family, relegated to the balcony, waits patiently for his visit to end. Haniya, the father of 13 and himself from a rundown Gaza refugee camp, bestows a reassuring smile to each and waves at the children, all of whom he finds “sweet”.
“We will repair everything destroyed by the occupation army,” he repeats in a home where paving stones have been torn up. One of Hamas’s top politicians, he shows no loss of composure when a man wearing a tracksuit demands, live on camera, that he inspect his devastated agricultural business.
“I lost 100,000 dollars worth!” claims 44-year-old Rizk al-Attar, shouting himself hoarse. “Are some people worth more than others?” Outside another house, Haniya examines concrete slabs protruding from a damaged wall next to uprooted trees.
“The Israelis broke everything, the tractor, the water reservoir... they gouged open sacks of grain,” Hikmat al-Attar shows AFP, denying that any Palestinian fighters had been in the area. “Why would they do that?” he says of the Israelis.
“I am going to form special ministerial committees to process compensation,” says Haniya, even though he dodges the financial specifics when pressed to do so by residents.
That is precisely the problem facing the Hamas-led government. It has been on the brink of financial meltdown since Israel, the European Union and United States suspended direct payments over its refusal to deviate from its stance over the state of Israel. Over the years, Hamas has gained power and influence by developing a vast network of social aid and welfare programmes, despite its status in the West which calls it a ‘terrorist organisation.’
As a result the movement built up a loyalty network that inspired many Palestinians, particularly in impoverished pockets of Gaza, to vote for them in local municipal elections, as in Beit Lahiya, and in January’s parliamentary vote.—AFP
