Terror war shifts once again to civil war in Gaza

Hamas goes back to targeting fellow Palestinians rather than Israelis
Jan. 21, 2009

Hamas members have executed several Fatah activists who may have collaborated with Israel during Operation Cast Lead and has rounded up hundreds, according to a Hamas official. The Hamas crackdown was ongoing during the fighting, but intensified after the cease-fire went into effect Sunday morning.

Moussa Abu Marzouk, deputy head of Hamas's political wing, told Al-Sharq al-Awsat that his organization had executed several people who they believe helped the Israeli air force bomb key targets.

"We will bring to justice those who were involved in helping Israel mark the location of Interior Minister Said Siam," he said.

Indeed, Israel’s ability to find Hamas weapons caches, hideouts, tunnels and bunkers points to the work of Israeli intelligence services and the information obtained from captured militants and from Fatah officials who escaped, with Israel’s help, from Gaza.

“Israel must win against Hamas for the sake of the civilian population, both in Gaza and in the south of Israel,” said a close aide to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. “We have not forgotten how Hamas threw Fatah members from the roofs of Gaza to their deaths [around the time of the Palestinian civil war] in 2007.”

“Hamas is the source of evil,” Yousef, a 39-year-old taxi driver in Ramallah, told us. “Since Hamas was elected the devil governs Gaza.”

A Fatah official in Ramallah told The Jerusalem Post that at least 100 of his men had been killed or wounded as a result of the massive Hamas crackdown and some had been brutally tortured.

He said that at least three of the detainees had their eyes gouged out by their interrogators, who accused them of providing Israel with wartime information about the location of Hamas militiamen and officials.

A Fatah activist in Gaza City claimed that as many as 80 members of his faction were either shot in the legs or had their hands broken for allegedly defying Hamas's house-arrest orders.

"What's happening in the Gaza Strip is a new massacre that is being carried out by Hamas against Fatah," he said. "Where were these [Hamas] cowards when the Israeli army was here?"

The activist said that Hamas's security forces had also confiscated cellular phones and computers belonging to thousands of local Fatah members and supporters.