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Source: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070615.wgazaticktock15/BNStory/Front
Hamas' Gaza Takeover Was Months in the Making
[Globe and Mail-Canada] Mark MacKinnon - Hamas spent months planning and preparing to take over the Gaza Strip, importing weapons from abroad and training for a confrontation that the militant group's leadership believed had become inevitable, officials in the Islamist movement said Friday. Sheik Yazeeb Khader, a Hamas newspaper editor who is now in hiding in the West Bank as Fatah steps up its retribution there, said that Hamas had learned from the success of Lebanon's Hizbullah movement. Hizbullah used a network of tunnels to smuggle weapons into position ahead of its war last summer against Israel. Khader gave credit to the international Muslim Brotherhood, of which Hamas is an offshoot, for "never being stingy" in providing financial and other aid to the Palestinian wing. Hamas also makes its own weapons, he said, including the Kassam rockets it uses to attack Israel.