Top Fatah activists leaving the movement to join Hamas

[Gimel]

Palestinian officials speaking at a meeting in the Muqata this week presented a grim picture of the Palestinian Authority's situation in the Gaza Strip, highlighting in particular the PA's lack of control over many activists from the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, Fatah's military wing.




Militant Palestinian groups already have a reputation for abusing the population of the West Bank and Gaza and scorning PA security chiefs. But the reports from Monday's meeting, which was attended by PA Chairman Yasser Arafat, Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia and PA security force chiefs, are even more disturbing for the PA and for Arafat in particular. According to the reports, a significant segment of armed Fatah leaders in Gaza answer to senior Hamas officials. These Fatah leaders are not even taking the phone calls of the leadership in Ramallah.

This is the situation in several parts of Gaza, according to reports, including the Jabaliya refugee camp and the neighboring neighborhood of Jabaliya in the north of the Strip, where the two suicide bombers who carried out the attack in the Ashdod port came from. It is also the case in the Dir al-Balah area in the center of the Strip, Abasan to the south of it and the Dahaniyeh region in southern Gaza.

Two major groups that have effectively stopped operating under Fatah are the Abu Reish Brigades, which has been carrying out attacks in Gaza regularly over the last few weeks in conjunction with Hamas activists, and the Saladin Alayubi group, the armed wing of an organization that had been considered closely linked to Arafat. It has only recently become known that some members of this group now refuse to take instructions from Arafat. Although they have not declared an overt revolt against him, their actions indicate that they have crossed over to Hamas, whose leaders understand that recruiting other militants can help Hamas widen its power base in Gaza and break down Fatah loosening hold on the Gaza Strip.


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