JERUSALEM: The fighting in Gaza is laying bare a dangerous trend: neither Hamas nor Fatah appear to be in control of their gunmen.
Furious over a two-month-old power sharing deal and eager for a showdown, the two groups’ armed wings and their patrons— not the top political leaders— have been calling the shots on the streets of Gaza.
In a sign of their increasing weakness, Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas and President Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah failed to make a cease-fire stick, despite repeated attempts this week.
At the root of the latest fighting, which killed nearly 50 and wounded dozens, is the failure of the Hamas-Fatah coalition deal, forged in March, to address the key issue of who controls the security forces. The government has also failed in its main task, lifting an international boycott and leading the Palestinians out of isolation.
In the past two months, discontent has been festering among Hamas’ hard-liners and in the military wing, which opposed the coalition deal from the start. In Fatah’s armed wing, many also clamoured for a showdown, having refused to resign themselves to Hamas’ election victory last year that ended decades of Fatah domination.
The spark came last week when the top Abbas-allied security chiefs moved 3,000 forces loyal to Fatah into the streets of Gaza City, ostensibly as part of a law-and-order crackdown.
Hamas, which demanded greater control over the security forces, perceived the deployment as a provocation, and set off a deadly round of fighting Sunday by killing a top Fatah militant.
Hamas and Fatah fighters are about evenly matched, and fought to a draw in previous rounds. This time, Hamas has shown the better organisation but the two sides still appear about equal.
In casting blame, each side said the order to go for a confrontation didn’t come from the leaders, but rather from politically ambitious troublemakers and gunmen under their command.
“There is a mutiny” in Hamas, said Fatah spokesman Tawfiq Abu Khoussa. “The political leadership has no control over the military wing.”
One high-profile Hamas opponent of the power-sharing deal is Mahmoud Zahar, a former foreign minister who was not given a Cabinet post in the new government.
Hamas lawmaker Salah Bardawil accused Abbas’ security adviser Mohammed Dahlan, a Gaza strongman, of orchestrating the Fatah campaign against Hamas.
“The battle is clearly with (Dahlan and his allies) and not with Fatah as a whole,” he said. “Even Abbas’s control over them is limited.”
During the clashes, Dahlan was in Cairo, recovering from a knee operation. Dahlan has denied in the past that he is running his own agenda.
Both Hamas and Fatah had clearly anticipated another round of violence, despite the power-sharing deal. During the lull, they stocked up on weapons, smuggled through tunnels under the Gaza-Egypt border.
In another sign of careful preparation, Hamas gunmen used computerised lists of pro-Fatah members of the security forces in roadblock checks, said Col Ali Qaisi, a spokesman for the Abbas-allied Presidential Guard.
“This is a pure and naked power struggle,” said Mouin Rabbani, an analyst with the International Crisis Group, an independent think-tank.
The Gaza showdown has been further complicated by the involvement of Israel and the US.
Israel has chased Hamas militants out of their command centres with a barrage of air strikes in recent days, a response to massive Hamas rocket fire on an Israeli town, and has also allowed 500 Fatah fighters trained in Egypt to cross into Gaza. Israel insists it has no plan to get into the middle of the Gaza power struggle, but its systematic targeting of Hamas has given Fatah fighters an advantage.
The US, meanwhile, has arranged for training and financial support for Abbas’ Presidential Guard, and the guardsmen are to be deployed at Gaza’s border crossings and in anti-rocket units as part of a US security plan.
This has given new ammunition to Hamas’ claims that Fatah is conspiring with outsiders. Hamas TV on Friday accused three Fatah security chiefs of treason, alleging they were in contact with foreign security services.
Each side has reasons for seeking the confrontation now, rather than giving the government more time.
Hamas has been spooked by warnings in Fatah that Abbas could resign— thus ushering in new presidential elections — if the unity government doesn’t succeed in lifting the international boycott by the end of the summer. Hamas strongly opposes new elections, saying it amounts to theft of its overwhelming election victory last year.
The government’s poor performance also strengthened Hamas hard-liners who felt the militant group’s attempt to transform itself into a political party was a mistake.
The role of the supreme Hamas leader, Syrian-based Khaled Mashaal, is somewhat murky. He has backed the unity deal, but has also threatened a new uprising against Israel if sanctions are not lifted and has denounced the US security plan as a Western plot to force Hamas to surrender.
Those in Fatah who oppose the alliance may gamble that the Gaza clashes will help bring down the government and speed up new elections.
It’s not clear whether Hamas is using the fighting to try to get a better coalition deal— Haniyeh aide Ahmed Yousef demanded new negotiations— or wants a fight to the finish.
However, victory by force is unlikely for either side. “Winning is losing,” said Rabbani. “When the victory (means) eliminating a Palestinian rival, society won’t accept that.”—AP
