Amnesty And Looting In Hamas' Gaza

Islamic Group Takes Control Of Gaza Strip, Splitting Palestinian Territories Into Two

(CBS/AP) 
Crowds converged on former Fatah strongholds and looted them.

The house of Fatah strongman Mohammed Dahlan was overrun, and looters stripped it of everything from windows and doors to flowerpots. "This was the house of the murderer Dahlan that was cleansed by the holy warriors," read graffiti sprayed on the wall.

Donkey carts outside the house waited to take more loot. Dahlan was in Egypt when the fighting erupted, and reached the West Bank on Thursday.

Gaza City's Shifa Hospital was still grappling with battle casualties. More than 90 people were killed in the fighting and dozens wounded. The morgue was overflowing, with four bodies lined up on the floor, and some of the wounded were sleeping on cardboard on the floor.

Two men were killed in revenge slayings Friday, including a Fatah gunman thrown from a roof in what Hamas described as a family grievance — the gunman, they said, had killed a member of a Hamas-allied family. Another Fatah loyalist was shot dead in southern Gaza.

Since Hamas' victory late Thursday, about a dozen Fatah gunmen had been killed in gangland-style executions, Fatah said.

Before word came of Hamas' amnesty offer, 97 Fatah officials fled in a fishing boat to Egypt. Others reached Israel via the Erez crossing and headed to the West Bank.

An Egyptian security delegation left Gaza after failing in its mediation efforts between the warring Palestinian factions.

Hamas' military takeover of Gaza formalized the separation between Gaza and the West Bank, and was a major setback to dreams of Palestinian statehood.

With a larger middle class, more foreign passport holders and more contact with the outside world, many West Bank residents have long felt they have little in common with Gaza.

"I expect to have economic development here and poverty there in Gaza," Salah Haniyeh, a government employee, said as he watched masked Fatah gunmen parading in pickup trucks through the West Bank city of Ramallah.

Across the West Bank, Fatah gunmen backed by Abbas-allied security forces expanded an anti-Hamas sweep. Dozens of Hamas supporters had been seized by gunmen or arrested by police since Thursday.

In the city of Nablus, a Hamas stronghold, Fatah gunmen set up checkpoints and barred access to the Hamas-run municipal building. Gunmen also vandalized a Hamas media office in Nablus, trashing computers and furniture.

"We will go after them (Hamas) everywhere," said Mouin Hijazi, a Nablus leader of the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, a violent Fatah offshoot. "We won't allow them to continue existing in the West Bank."

In Gaza, an immediate concern was how long the coastal strip would be sealed. Gaza's main passenger and cargo crossings, with Egypt and Israel, were closed this week, and it was not clear when they would reopen. Extended closure could quickly lead to a humanitarian crisis.

A Hamas spokesman said Palestinian police, now under Hamas command, would take up positions at the crossings, but it was unlikely Israel would agree to such a deployment because Hamas militants frequently attacked the passages in the past.

John Ging, head of U.N. aid operations in Gaza, said his agency would resume work Saturday. The U.N. Relief and Works Agency provides emergency food rations and health care to hundreds of thousands of Gazans. He called for a quick reopening of the Gaza crossings.

[pwrslm]

One of Arafats main men was Abbas. Abbas was much more radical than Arafat. This is all a slight of hand to make the west and Israel think the muslims are divided.

The truth is, they are purging Fatah, and by doing so, will justify eliminating the palestine constitution, and replacing it with the Hamas Charter, which calls for the elimination of Israel.

[rhs648]

We plan to eliminate the state of Israel and establish a purely Palestinian state. We will make life unbearable for Jews by psychological warfare and population explosion. We Palestinians will take over everything, including all of Jerusalem.

-- Yasser Arafat

Posted by pwrslm

Your quotes from Arafat tell it all. Some observers in the past noticed that Arafat spoke to two different groups, his people and the western world. The western world heard how anxious Arafat was for peace. His people heard the hate and animosity he had toward Israel and the western world. It is hard to imagine that this has changed much.

[gkc99]

If Muslims were interested in anything except perpetual war, Egypt would take control of Gaza. While we give many billions in aid to Egypt, they sit with their faces in the dirt, their a$$es in the air, and their thumbs up their aholes, rather than take responsibility for Gaza. The Egyptians condemn innocent Palestinians to suffer--their Mooslim brothers and sisters.

End all foreign aid to Egypt NOW!

[neoconrcrazy]

Instead, we may see two weakened entities, Gaza and the West Bank, warring with each other for many years.

Posted by rhs648

the so-called "civil war" between palestinians lasted 5 days and 90 were killed -

Fatah has been in control of the political future of Palestine the last 50 years - now there's a change. The people are fed up with corruption and want a negotiated agreement. They feel Hamas better suited to do it. Let's see.

In any case, don't expect them to forget that they are palestinians first and foremost.

[neoconrcrazy]

Both groups call for the destruction of Israel--period.
Posted by rhs648

thanks for your measured words - unlike some for whom discussion is an unknown concept.

Fatah has recognized israel but that hasn't helped matters - before Hamas was elected both israel and America called Abbas "irrelevent".

Now that Hamas has replaced Fatah, they seem to have lost all direction.

Hamas, you are correct, hasn't recognized israel because they say there should be no pre-conditions. Considering the importance, I'd tend to agree - what does israel have to lose?

Overall I am in agreement with the Christian Science Monitor article, part of which I posted.

[rhs648]

Fatah and Hamas have done Israel, the United States, and the world a great favor. So much for the idea of two states, Israel and Palestine. Instead, we may see two weakened entities, Gaza and the West Bank, warring with each other for many years. This appears to be another example of Arafat's and Fatah's legacy. How sad that the Palestinians could have seized the opportunity for peace with Israel and statehood for the Palestinians but chose not to. Sort of use it or lose it.

[rhs648]

"There is an enormous difference between "recognizing Israel's existence" and "recognizing Israel's right to exist..."

Posted by neoconRcrazy

The goal of Fatah and Hamas was always to drive the Israelis into the ocean. This does not show much willingness to either recognize Israel's existence and/or recognize Israel's right to exist. Both groups call for the destruction of Israel--period.

[pwrslm]

Posted by neoconRcrazy

Ive heard your lies from KKK, White Supremacists, Nazi's, and Muslims, and the only thing different today than yesterday, is that they continue to be repeated by ignorant people.
Posted by pwrslm at 08:16 AM : Jun 16, 2007

Posted by pwrslm at 08:42 AM : Jun 16, 2007

Posted by pwrslm at 10:16 AM : Jun 16, 2007

[neoconrcrazy]

Satan sits high above the congregations of Islam, they worship him as if he were truely God. Satan has fulfilled prophecy.

Posted by pwrslm


sorry to say, i'm normally tolerant of bigots as I know they're haven't had all the chances I've had - but you are one sick dude.

[radiob-2009]

So is anyone suggesting that the Palestinians and the world should reject the peaceful efforts by Abbas?

[pwrslm]

The truth be told, people dont want to hear the truth. With the overwelming amount of evidence proving that Islam is the cause of the problems in the middle east, they still seek to find other answers.

There are no more answers to be found. Satan sits high above the congregations of Islam, they worship him as if he were truely God. Satan has fulfilled prophecy.


Isaiah 14:13-15
13 For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: 14 I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High. 15 Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit.

[pwrslm]

Posted by neoconRcrazy

Ive heard your lies from KKK, White Supremacists, Nazi's, and Muslims, and the only thing different today than yesterday, is that they continue to be repeated by ignorant people.
Posted by pwrslm at 08:16 AM : Jun 16, 2007

Posted by pwrslm at 08:42 AM : Jun 16, 2007

[neoconrcrazy]

"There is an enormous difference between "recognizing Israel's existence" and "recognizing Israel's right to exist." From a Palestinian perspective, the difference is in the same league as the difference between asking a Jew to acknowledge that the Holocaust happened and asking him to concede that the Holocaust was morally justified. For Palestinians to acknowledge the expulsion (Nakba) of the great majority of Palestinians from their homeland between 1947 and 1949 %u2013 is one thing. For them to publicly concede that it was "right" for the explusion to have happened would be something else entirely. For the Jewish and Palestinian peoples, the Holocaust and the Nakba, respectively, represent catastrophes and injustices on an unimaginable scale that can neither be forgotten nor forgiven.

To demand that Palestinians recognize "Israel's right to exist" is to demand that a people who have been treated as subhumans unworthy of basic human rights publicly proclaim that they are subhumans. It would imply Palestinians' acceptance that they deserve what has been done and continues to be done to them. Even 19th-century US governments did not require the surviving native Americans to publicly proclaim the "rightness" of their ethnic cleansing by European colonists as a condition precedent to even discussing what sort of land reservation they might receive.
Christian Science Monitor, Feb.2, 2007 article : What Israel's "right to exist" means to Palestinians

[neoconrcrazy]

Thats what I have been talking about. The source is Islam.
Posted by pwrslm


Amazing how people always seek the easy answers.... religion

when it's economics and politics, just like in Northern Ireland where for decades it was described as "religious war".

Now that the Catholics are getting the same rights (poliical & economical) as the Protstants, there is peace...

Why don't some of you open your eyes, those are same forces at work in Palestine, it's not religion.

[neoconrcrazy]

The only way to step forward is by using the truth. The truth is that all the condemnation against Israels use of force for decades ignored the cause of the use of force...

Posted by pwrslm

it being obvious you do not hold any monopoly on the "truth" -

the truth is that israels' use of overwhelming force against stones, bottles, ineffective "missles" (more like 4th july stuff),
for the last 40 years IS BECAUSE OF OCCUPATION and
annexation of other peoples land.

They covet their neignbors land and that's the truth.

[radiob-2009]

Thats what I have been talking about. The source is Islam.
Posted by pwrslm


Read some of the comments of other posters and you will find it is not singular in its divisiveness nor is it singular to a specific religion or ideology.

[pwrslm]

Hatred begats hatred and nothing else. This vicious cycle will continue until the hatred is removed.
Posted by radiob

Thats what I have been talking about. The source is Islam.

[rushlimpdrug]

So are these people happy now?
I have a weekend to enjoy, hope they enjoy theirs.

[infidel_us]

"Reconciliation In Palestine"

Hey, satanic muslims.......she's probably a good example of what your 72 virgins looks like! Man, can you just imagine what that cooter smells like? Dressed in black, in the hot sun, probably hasn't bathed for weeks.........YUCK!!!!

[radiob-2009]

Hatred begats hatred and nothing else. This vicious cycle will continue until the hatred is removed.