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Hamas Struggles to Govern Following Conflict with Israel

'Level of despair and despondency is very high' in Gaza

Palestinian school boys drink iced juice as they sit on a damaged wall of a school in Gaza City
Palestinian school boys drink iced juice as they sit on a damaged wall of a school in Gaza City / AP
September 16, 2014

JERUSALEM—Hamas has yet to name replacements for key commanders killed in the Gaza war last month, but it has had a lot of other things on its mind.

Hamas is having a difficult time dealing with the more than 2,100 Gazans dead—at least half of them non-combatants—11,000 wounded, and 100,000 homeless citizens.

The pride evoked by Hamas’ ability to stand up to Israel during 50 days of combat was reflected in a post-war poll that showed the political leader of the Gaza Strip, Ismail Haniyeh, being twice as popular as President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority, which rules on the West Bank. Tellingly, support for Haniyeh in Gaza (53 percent) was less than in the West Bank (66 percent).

"They are in denial," Gaza psychiatrist Akram Moussa told the Associated Press, referring to residents celebrating Hamas’ victory. "It will pass and be replaced by anger first and then grief."

The director of the UN World Health Organization’s office in Gaza, Mahmoud Daher, told the AP that domestic violence in the strip has increased because of overall frustration. "There may not be a single Palestinian in Gaza who thinks the future will be brighter," he said.

Hamas has refused to reveal the fate of its military chief, Mohammed Deif, whose wife and two children were killed in an air strike on his apartment. It is now assumed in Israel that Deif, badly wounded in previous assassination attempts, may have survived this one, but remains in bad condition. Two other top commanders were killed.

Fearful of another round with Israel after three mini-wars in six years, many Gaza landlords are refusing to rent apartments to Hamas activists. In the just-ended confrontation, Israel methodically hit buildings containing the apartments of Hamas activists, either with artillery or aerial bombs.

Deputy political leader of Hamas, Musa Abu Marzuk, decried the landlords’ attitudes.

"This is a dangerous phenomenon," he wrote on his Facebook page. "The landlords are punishing the resistance fighters and their families."

It is not just the landlords. Residents of an apartment tower in the upscale Rimal neighborhood petitioned the Hamas-controlled Interior Ministry to remove its offices from the building because of the danger of an Israeli attack in a future war.

Towards the end of the fighting last month, the Israeli air force knocked down three residential towers after warning their residents to get out. All did. The shock effect of those actions is believed to have been what hastened Hamas’ request for a ceasefire.

Life in Gaza has become so constricted by Hamas’ tight control and the partial blockade imposed by Israel and Egypt that 43 percent of residents told pollsters that they would like to emigrate, compared to 20 percent of Palestinians on the West Bank.

Although Palestinians have rarely been mentioned among illegal migrants trying to reach Europe by boat from North Africa, 15 were reported to have drowned over the weekend when the boat they were on foundered off the Egyptian port of Alexandria. Other Palestinians were among those rescued. Two other Palestinians from the Gaza Strip were among the few survivors on another boat that sank last week.

With virtually none of Hamas’ demands thus far met, the organization has yet to justify the painful war to Gaza’s shell-shocked residents. "The level of despair and despondency is very high," EU representative John Gatt-Rutter, who visited the strip last week, told Reuters.

Published under: Gaza , Hamas , Israel