Peace? No, never – inside the mind of Hamas

Published on Sunday 4 January 2009 21:04

IN A concrete room, a militant from the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigade sat on a bed. His head was swathed in a keffiyah and he fidgeted while holding a Kalashnikov rifle, his eyes darting nervously to the door then back to my face.

"You've to hurry," said the translator.

"Will the ceasefire hold?" I asked.

"No, I can never see any peace with Israel. They are our enemies," he replied.

"Are Jewish women and children legitimate targets for Hamas?"

"No, no. Only the Israeli soldiers who attack us. We are not terrorists. We are only defending ourselves from their occupation of our land," he said, shaking his head and wagging a finger.

I wanted to know why they did not stop the rocket attacks on Israel. "We have stopped firing missiles over the past few weeks, but nothing changes for the better in Gaza. The Israeli Defence Force (IDF) fires at us, so we fire back, then they come in with jet fighters, helicopters and tanks. No-one seems to care about a Palestinian death. Why are Israeli lives worth more than ours in the eyes of the world?"

But, ask Israeli supporters, how can the continuing human suffering be worth it all? "If they keep hitting us, we'll keep hitting them," said this anonymous fighter during the truce between Israel and Hamas that ended shortly before Christmas. He was just about to start a nightshift on patrol in Beit Hanoun in the north of the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian town close to the border with Israel and an area which has, in effect, been the frontline of a war between Hamas and Israel for some time.

In this once-thriving industrial zone with many Palestinian businesses, factories have been razed by bombs, piles of rubble that provide an ugly monument to hatred.

I had travelled to Gaza to document the impact of Israel's economic blockade, and it was clear that this densely populated sliver of land was in economic meltdown. In many parts, rubbish was piled high due to collections being stopped. Most shops were closed and the streets largely deserted, with few cars moving because of petrol shortages. Gaza had the feeling of a ghost town, its people in despair.

The United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration said nearly 95 per cent of all factories in Gaza had been closed, and Israel's repeated shutdown of power sources had contributed to a humanitarian crisis that had left the number of households below the poverty line at 52 per cent. Oxfam said a third of the population only had access to water for three to four hours every five days. People lit fires to cook, and rabbits were being smuggled through tunnels at the Egyptian border, to provide meat.

The effects of the blockade were felt most acutely at Gaza's 13 hospitals. At the Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, Dr Hussein Ashour said 220 patients had died since the siege began, deaths that in his opinion were avoidable. Only 30 per cent of ambulances were operational and the power was cut for six to seven hours every day. "Imagine running a hospital without any electricity," Dr Ashour said.

Israel imposed the blockade after Hamas ousted Fatah to win the January 2006 parliamentary elections. It was a political earthquake, but Hamas' ascendancy to power was anathema to many nations, not least Israel, which boycotted the government with a view to ostracising the new regime. In June 2007, fighting erupted in Gaza between Hamas and Fatah, with the former routing the latter to wrest total control of the coastal territory.

The outcome became Israel's worst nightmare. Hamas – democratically elected and with the long-term aim of establishing an Islamic state – was now in control of the Gaza Strip. Israel's response was swift, and the blockade was tightened.

If an aim of Israel's blockade was to turn the population against Hamas, it would appear to have been a disastrous miscalculation. Most Gazans I interviewed felt Israel was wholly to blame for their plight, and there was strong support for a military response from Hamas to a siege that had no end in sight. These sentiments were also expressed by children who are growing up to believe they must fight Israel because of the suffering they endure. On our way to meet with the Hamas fighter, we were joined in the car by the teenage son of our driver. Majed, 14, wore a dark blue balaclava and a white scarf with a picture of Yasser Arafat. The logo on his T-shirt showed a grenade, two M16 rifles and an image of the Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem.

Majed said proudly that he wanted to "join the army to fight the Jews". His father had taught his son how to use a rifle and a rocket-propelled grenade launcher. There was little sympathy for the 377 Israelis murdered by Hamas since September 2000, or for the inhabitants of Sderot, an Israeli town close to the border that never sleeps out of fear of rocket attacks.

Defending critics in the face of the deepening humanitarian crisis in Gaza, Israel insisted the problems were the sole responsibility of Hamas, and nothing to do with Israel, which completely disengaged from Gaza three years ago.

The Israeli Embassy said at the time: "Israel has been supplying fuel, food, medical supplies and other humanitarian assistance in spite of incessant attacks carried out by Hamas and other organisations on the border crossings. It is apparent Hamas is targeting the crossings in order to prevent the transfer of humanitarian aid to the civilian population, cynically depriving its own population and causing an artificial crisis in the Gaza Strip."

A ceasefire was agreed on 19 June last year, but Israel claimed Hamas continued to fire rockets at Israeli towns.

Ahmed Yousef, a senior Hamas official, said it was almost impossible to prevent militants firing missiles completely, because of the continual incursions into Gaza by the IDF.

"We have stopped rockets going over for weeks at a time but still they won't open the crossings or allow in more supplies. People do not see the fruits of the ceasefire, so they get frustrated," he said.

Mr Yousef, who is viewed as a Hamas moderate, said Israel, with the backing of the US, was imposing a collective punishment on the people of Gaza for having elected Hamas: "Israel and the American administration has chosen to isolate, rather than deal with us, the elected government.

"The blockade is designed to punish the electorate for its choice, and the aim is to crush Hamas. Israel will continue to provoke us into a response, which will then justify a 'war on Gazans'."

At night, masked Hamas fighters patrolled the streets of Gaza City in single file, armed with Kalashnikovs and on one occasion, driving to Rafah in the south, we encountered a group of around 30 men wearing balaclavas running alongside the road in the desert. They appeared as if a mirage.

Our Hamas bodyguards informed us they were members of Islamic Jihad, which, they said, had a training camp nearby. We stopped to ask for interviews but were told in no uncertain terms to leave the area immediately.

In stark contrast, many Palestinians would play on the beach at night and swim in the Mediterranean, young and old enjoying one of the few simple pleasures they still have and ignoring the political turmoil that engulfs them.

Amid this oasis of apparent normality, the rockets continued to fall. There was a palpable fear that war would come, as it now has.

Paramilitaries who want Israel replaced by an Islamic state

HAMAS, a Palestinian Sunni paramilitary organisation and political party which holds a majority of seats in the elected legislative council of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), does not recognise the right of Israel to exist.

It wants to create an Islamic state out of Israel, the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and the group's many thousands of supporters want complete Israeli withdrawal from the Palestinian territories.

The military wing, the Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades, is responsible for firing rockets deep into Israel. In February and March 1996, Hamas carried out several bus bombings, killing nearly 60 Israelis. It was also blamed for the 1997 attacks in Jerusalem which killed 15 people, and brought the then peace process to a halt.

Hamas was created in 1987 by Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi and Mohammad Taha of the Palestinian wing of the Muslim Brotherhood.

In January 2006, Hamas won 76 of the 132 seats in the Palestinian parliament, while the previous ruling Fatah party only took 43, sparking fierce in-fighting between Hamas and Fatah. Following the Battle for Gaza in June 2007, elected Hamas officials were ousted from the PNA government in the West Bank and replaced by rival Fatah members. Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas, of Fatah, denounced the Hamas militia. As a result, the two groups have failed to agree a policy for them to co-exist within the PNA mutually to tackle Israeli aggression.