KHAN YUNIS (Gaza Strip): A little over a year ago, on a Saturday afternoon midway through Ramazan, a one-kilo mango deal went sour at a Gaza Strip fruit stand.
Since that fateful day, when Shaker Abu Taha refused to give fruit seller Ashraf al-Masri the exact change, 14 Palestinians have been killed and dozens more wounded in running gun battles, drive by shootings, and gangland-style murders.
The feud between the Masri and Abu Taha clans, who live side-by-side in the southern Gaza town of Khan Yunis, continues to burn 13 months later, exploding into a downtown shooting that a rights group said left five dead on November 4.
In lawless Gaza, where police are powerless, Palestinians are increasingly resorting to tribal ties and a primitive, often brutal, form of street justice.
The deteriorating situation has been further enflamed by a Western aid freeze slapped on the Hamas-led government in March, which has sent Gaza's already miserable economic fortunes spiralling and exacerbated unemployment.
“It's either the rule of law or the rule of the jungle, and right now it's a jungle,” said Jaber Wishah, deputy director of the Gaza-based Palestinian Center for Human Rights, which keeps tabs on the tribal bloodshed in Gaza.
Often sparked by something as trivial as a misunderstanding, the feuds quickly snowball, as out-of-work youth, hopped up on the torrent of illegal guns pouring into the Gaza Strip, take the law into their own hands.
“The youth have nothing to do so they start problems with each other,” said Ayub al-Kafarneh, a tribal elder in the north Gaza town of Beit Hanun. Until recently, his family was embroiled in a deadly war that began when a teenage relative crashed his car into another family's donkey cart.
“The kids fight and it becomes a problem between families. Because of the terrible conditions, because everyone has guns nowadays, and because of the absence of any law and order, a simple problem can get so much worse.” Few feuds have spiralled as far out of control as the Masri-Abu Taha battle in Khan Yunis, where the two families live divided only by a boulevard that once bustled with shops and kiosks owned by merchants from each clan.
Today those shops are boarded up and the deserted thoroughfare has become the de-facto front line.
Apartment blocks on either side of the street are pockmarked with bullet holes. Side streets are walled off with cement palettes, sandbags and cinderblocks.
Guards with AK47s and roving bands of unruly adolescents grill unfamiliar faces as they near each family's territory.
“We need these walls because every night Abu Taha shoots at us,” said Ibrahim al-Masri, 20 and unemployed. Curling his upper lip as he talks, he said: “We'll kill five of theirs for every one of ours.” The feud began when a Masri clansmen demanded exact change for a kilo (2.2 pounds) of mangoes that cost five shekels (one dollar). Shaker Abu Taha insisted he only had a 20 shekel note and demanded change. The two men scuffled and parted ways, but not before dignities had been irreparably damaged.
Later that day, four armed men in a station wagon rolled up as Shaker, a 32-year-old father of three, left the neighbourhood mosque. They shot him dead.
A series of tit-for-tat killings and street battles ensued. Both families lost lives, one as young as 13. Scores more were injured and children left paralysed. Dozens of shops belonging to each family were trashed and burned.
Repeated attempts to end the conflict have failed, with each side saying the other is unwilling to compromise. Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas even intervened to call for a truce.—AFP
