Palestinians Brace for Civil War

December 18th, 2006

Gaza City, Gaza - The convoy of Palestinian Foreign Minister Mahmoud Zahar, a member of Hamas, was fired on in Gaza City on Sunday as Gaza takes a turn for the worse.

Abu al-Abed is a hardly an excitable man -- not the kind to be goaded into action by a bit of rhetoric. Nor does he give the impression of being eager to fight. Which makes his sober analysis of the situation in the Palestinian Territories all the more ominous. "To be honest," he says, sitting on his couch in his home in the Jabalia Refugee Camp, "the coming weeks could be worse than everything that has come before."

Al-Abed is the commander of the Kassam Brigade, a group of 500 fighters who belong to the military wing of Hamas. In front of him lies a Kalashnikov magazine, next to him on the couch are two Walkie-Talkies which periodically come to life with hissing and squawking from his comrades in the field. The situation is tense in the Palestinian Territories, and al-Abed and his comrades are preparing for the worst. They are preparing for a possible Palestinian civil war.

Fighting continued in the Gaza Strip on Monday even as a tentative cease-fire, hammered out between the warring factions Hamas and Fatah on Sunday evening, seeks to gain traction. Despite masked gunmen once again exchanging volleys of fire on the streets of Gaza City on Monday morning, though, the fighting had subsided markedly from weekend levels. On Sunday, the convoy of Palestinian Foreign Minister Mahmoud Zahar, a member of Hamas, was fired on in Gaza City. While Zahar was unharmed, a gunbattle ensued for more than an hour and fighting continued into the evening. An earlier fight erupted after Hamas gunmen raided a Fatah training center.

A green light for chaos

The violence is just the most recent stage of the ongoing power struggle between Hamas, which won the parliamentary elections in January, and Fatah, to which President Mahmoud Abbas belongs. Hamas is worried that Abbas, by calling for new elections on Saturday as a way out of the disagreement -- which has been manifested by the Palestinians' inability to form a government in the almost 11 months since the elections -- is attempting to push Hamas out of power.

"Abbas's speech demanding new elections was the turning point. That was the green light for further escalations, for more chaos," says al-Abed. In the background, his four-year-old son is playing a game on the computer, his two pre-teen daughters bring coffee.

Again and again, men from his Brigade happen by for a visit. Most of them stay only briefly, just long enough to be given their final instructions. One asks to borrow a prayer rug -- the others remain silent as he kneels on the stone floor to make up for prayers missed earlier in the day. Abu al-Abed plays absent-mindedly with the Kalashnikov magazine. "Our side will not instigate organized violence," he says after the pious fighter has left. "But we are ready to defend ourselves at any time."

Fighters from Fatah would no doubt say the same. But al-Abed thinks there is an important difference: "Only those who follow our ideological line, maintain our discipline, and unquestionably follow our orders are allowed to fight for Hamas." The group's name translates as "zeal."

Indeed, the al-Qassam Brigade -- with its estimated 10,000 fighters -- is well-known for its tight discipline. The militant wing of Fatah, for its part, has fewer members in the Gaza Strip and is made up of a number of splinter groups spread out among the police and other security forces -- groups which occasionally fight among themselves. Fatah's base of power is in the West Bank; in the Gaza Strip, Hamas has the upper hand.

Political poker

Both are well armed and possess arsenals complete with rocket and grenade launchers, mines and more than enough machine guns and ammunition. Hamas, says al-Abed, has an additional weapon: "our wills."

Even before the weekend violence, Hamas took to the streets of Gaza on Friday in a public display of determination. Hundreds of heavily armed, masked al-Qassam troops paraded through Gaza City in an effort to intimidate President Abbas. But Abbas announced his plan for new parliamentary and presidential elections. Indeed, both moves can be seen as part of the ongoing game of political poker in the Palestinian Territories. Even if the split between the two groups seems wider than ever -- and even if the threats are becoming increasingly concrete -- they are still talking and still negotiating with the aim of creating a government together.

And Abbas has left a back door open for himself. New elections are by no means a foregone conclusion. Should his Fatah come to an agreement with Hamas on the formation of a government, he could discard his election plan without losing face.

Hamas has likewise been trying to tone down its rhetoric. On Saturday evening, Hamas spokesman Ismail Rudwan, speaking to a gathering of thousands of fired-up Hamas supporters in front of the parliament in Gaza, did his duty by vilifying Abbas for his call for new elections. At the same time, though, he avoided going so far as to make it impossible to negotiate with the Fatah front man. Abbas, he said, is merely a rabbit cowering before a group of lions. In other words, Abbas is merely weak and poorly advised. The real culprits are to be found elsewhere.

To fully understand the current conflict, one has to go back over a decade to 1994 when the Palestinian self-rule began. Fatah dominated Palestinian politics from that time until the very beginning of this year. But with complete power came complacency, and Yasser Arafat's administration became increasingly corrupt and inefficient. Social programs like education and health care were often left to Hamas, which established itself as a non-governmental welfare service. Its January election victory, in which they won 60 percent of the vote, came as a surprise to no one.

"The Brigade is ready"

But it came at a price to the Palestinians. Because Hamas refuses to renounce violence and refuses to recognize Israel, the international community cut off all financial support to the Palestinian Territories, which relies on foreign help for 70 percent of its budget. Since then, the Palestinian Authority has been de facto bankrupt.

Given that many Palestinians haven't been paid for months, and that the situation shows no signs of improvement any time in the near future, Abbas has been trying to assemble a "national unity government" made up of members of both Fatah and Hamas. Only a government which includes the more moderate Fatah party, he argues, will be seen as a negotiating partner by Israel and will be able to convince the international community to resume their aid payments.

And Hamas has, in principle, agreed to the creation of such a government. But the talks hit a roadblock when both parties demanded control of the Finance and Interior Ministries. Both want control of the money and the weapons. Since then, nothing much has happened.

In the Jabalia Refugee Camp, a loudspeaker bursts into life with the afternoon call to prayer. God is Great. There is no God but God. Muhammad is God's prophet. "It is time to go," says Abu al-Abed. Time for one final question -- whether he expects more gunbattles between Hamas and Fatah in the near future. "We will see what God's will is," he responds. "Whatever happens, the Brigade is ready."

By Ulrike Putz - Spiegel Online