Gaza Under Hamas: Quiet, Cut Off and Digging In

After 18 months in which gun battles between Hamas and Fatah forces defined street life, Hamas has made it illegal to carry weapons in public or to fire them, even at weddings or funerals.

Tamer al-Bagga, who manages a beachside cafe, said people now patronized his business until “all hours of the night.” In June, people were hiding at home, keeping their children on the floor to avoid bullets. “Now we have security,” he said. “But with the closure, we have no money.”

Because the Hamas charter calls for Israel’s destruction and Hamas is classified by Israel, the United States and the European Union as a terrorist group, Israel, along with much of the world, is squeezing Gaza, allowing only goods classified as humanitarian or essential to enter and no exports at all to leave. So an already faltering economy is collapsing.

According to the Palestinian Businessmen Association, 75 percent of private factories and workshops have closed for lack of essential materials or spare parts, throwing 70,000 more people out of work.

Stores are half stocked. Cigarettes and spare parts have become very expensive. There are electricity cuts of up to eight hours a day. Vegetables and fruit, with no possibility of export, are dirt cheap. “We have the best-fed donkeys in the world,” said Fahed Khalifa, 19, who owns one.

With United Nations food aid, no one is starving, but Gaza is more isolated now than ever, cut off not only from the West Bank but also from the rest of the world. With the crossing into Egypt also closed, Gazans are finding it almost impossible to get Israeli permission to leave the territory, even temporarily.

Hamas now has a near monopoly on weapons in Gaza, but its battle with Fatah, which largely controls the West Bank, continues. The fight is over personnel, the news media and even how to define the weekend, with Hamas sticking with the traditional Thursday and Friday, and the West Bank government insisting on Friday and Saturday.

While Hamas talks of restoring a unity government with Fatah, the rift appears to be deepening.

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