Gaza awaits its dawn

Egyptian mediation may signal a way out of the current Palestinian crisis, writes Khaled Amayreh from West Bank

Cartoon by Fathi

21 - 27 December 2006

Egyptian mediation appears to have succeeded in at least containing a spiraling conflict between Fatah and Hamas militias in the Gaza Strip. Egyptian officials worked through the night to get the two sides to agree to a ceasefire that would end the latest round of inter-Palestinian fighting which has claimed as many as 16 lives.

The agreement stipulates the withdrawal of all armed militants from the streets of Gaza and an end to all forms of incitement. A joint operations room will be established to respond quickly to any outbreaks of violence.

Hamas and Fatah forces began withdrawing around midnight, giving cautious optimism that the bloody confrontation would come to an end. Fresh skirmishes, however, were reported Wednesday morning, when two Palestinian security cadres were killed and two others injured after an anti-tank missile was fired at a police station in downtown Gaza.

An earlier ceasefire agreement, brokered by leaders of Palestinian factions not involved in the fighting, including Islamic Jihad and several leftist groups, failed to hold.

Both PA President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Ismail Haniya welcomed the agreement, and Egyptian mediators have made it known that they will publicly name whichever party violates the ceasefire.

Abbas, who has not yet met with Haniya since the clashes began, said "we hope all will abide by this agreement." Abbas and Haniya earlier called on the warring sides to stop the fighting.

"I call on all sides to show restraint and calm, not to resort to arms and to end the tension," Haniya said in a speech delivered on Tuesday evening. "Hamas members are our sons, Fatah members are also our sons. Our people must be united in the face of the occupation and aggression and must never be dragged into internal fighting. I say that despite the wounds of the past few days."

Abbas called on "everyone, without exception, to adhere to a ceasefire and to end the killings and all other operations in order to maintain national unity".

On Tuesday, six Palestinians were killed in street fighting. A number of Fatah and Hamas operatives and leaders were also briefly kidnapped. None of the hostages were hurt and by Wednesday morning all had been released.

Luckily violence has not spread to the West Bank, with the exception of a minor incident in Hebron where elements affiliated with the Palestinian Intelligence Apparatus (Fatah) abducted a Hamas-affiliated paramedic from a local hospital. Cameras installed outside the hospital caught the kidnappers on film and the hostage was released a few hours later.

Despite the gravity of events in Gaza, fears of a wider civil war are exaggerated. The Palestinian public remains adamantly opposed to any widening of the conflict. The vast bulk of ordinary Palestinians, even those who support Fatah and Hamas in elections, would refuse to be drawn into any extended fighting between the two factions.

In the West Bank the prospect of civil war is even less than in the Gaza Strip, a result of extended family and clan ties superseding political affiliations.

Hamas has no significant military presence in the West Bank, where the Israeli occupation army is in control. The possibility of a bloody showdown between Fatah and Hamas in the West Bank is therefore remote, at least for the time being.

It is clear, nonetheless, that as long as the political crisis between Hamas and Fatah remains unresolved, and external parties, such as the US, continue to agitate the situation by giving money and arms to one side, there can be no guarantee that fresh clashes will not occur.

Many Palestinians hope that recent bloody events in Gaza, the killing of so many Palestinians by Palestinians, will prompt Palestinian society, especially Fatah and Hamas, to indulge in some soul-searching and find a way to prevent the reoccurrence of such a state.

"This is disgraceful, disgusting and shameful," said a taxi driver in Hebron. "They are killing each other ...and for what? For nothing."

"This is what they are doing to each other before statehood, so imagine what they will do when there is a state," said another taxi driver.

It is unclear what bearing the clashes in Gaza will have on Mahmoud Abbas's decision to call for early presidential and legislative elections in the occupied Palestinian territories. Hamas has rejected Abbas's call as illegal and unconstitutional, denouncing the move as a prescription for civil war.

Some observers believe that Abbas will be prompted to suspend or postpone the elections indefinitely while others hope that the bloody clashes will pressure both sides to work more sincerely toward political reconciliation, probably in the form of a national unity government. If not, both sides stand to alienate the public, who are unlikely to forgive or forget scenes of Palestinians killing one another.

The events of the past few days have also shown that strong, pro-active Arab mediation, such as Egypt's, will be needed to get the two mutually-distrusting sides to move forward.

There is no doubt that the root cause of the Hamas- Fatah confrontation in Gaza is Israel's suffocating blockade that has pushed many to the edge, both economically and psychologically.

Indeed, as an Israeli writer wrote in Ha'aretz newspaper a few months ago, the Israelis, and the Americans, have been experimenting with Gaza's 1.4 million tormented inhabitants to see how they will react when placed in a pressure cooker for so long.