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Shock, Awe and Dread in Gaza

[Ha'aretz] Avi Issacharoff - Quiet returned to the streets of Gaza all at once this week. Gunmen (not members of Hamas) have disappeared from the streets, apparently due to a fear of the Hamas Executive Force. And now that Hamas has banned people from masking their faces, that phenomenon has also ceased. Hamas traffic cops dressed in civilian clothes now stand guard at intersections. At the same time, Iz a-Din al-Kassam, the Hamas military wing, is constantly searching the homes of suspects, collecting weapons of members of the Palestinian security services, and responding to the actions of the armed clans. The Durmush clan, which is holding BBC journalist Alan Johnston, is the last bastion of opposition to Hamas in Gaza. The quiet can be attributed, at least in part, to the fear Hamas struck into residents' hearts last week. Testimony collected from the days of fighting indicates that Hamas imposed a methodical system of terror and scare tactics intended to deter, shock and frighten Fatah operatives and Gaza residents in general. Every Hamas patrol carried with it a laptop containing a list of Fatah operatives in Gaza, and an identity number and a star appeared next to each name. A red star meant the operative was to be executed and a blue one meant he was to be shot in the legs - a special, cruel tactic developed by Hamas, in which the shot is fired from the back of the knee so that the kneecap is shattered when the bullet exits the other side. A black star signaled arrest, and no star meant that the Fatah member was to be beaten and released. Hamas also killed innocent Palestinians, with the intention of deterring the large clans. To overpower the Bakr clan from Shati, Hamas removed all the family members from their compound and lined them up against a wall. Militants selected a 14-year-old girl, two women aged 19 and 75, and two elderly men, and shot them to death in cold blood.
2007-06-22 01:00:00
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