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Surviving Gaza

While covering fighting between Hamas and Fatah, Associated Press reporter Sarah El Deeb managed to witness snippets of real life when the bullets weren't flying.

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published February 6, 2007

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip

Never mind the almost daily cease-fire announcements. The music played on the radio stations of Hamas and Fatah is a much better guide to war and peace.

When both Hamas's Al Aqsa radio and Fatah's Al Shabab simultaneously played Today Is the Day of Rage - an Arab nationalist march - last week, it was pretty clear the guns would not fall silent.

At times of heavy clashes, the playlists include Islamic marching songs or odes to the late Fatah founder, Yasser Arafat. When the sides pull back their forces, songs about Jerusalem are popular. And Lebanese singer Fairouz is a favorite on Al Shabab, a demonstration of secular nationalist sentiment.

Radio broadcasts also air political statements and take calls from listeners trapped at home by gunfire. At one point, Al Shabab tried to lower Hamas' morale by reporting that scores of Hamas militiamen had defected. Al Aqsa retaliated in kind.

And when a new cease-fire was announced Sunday, both stations broadcast the same telephone number for listeners to report violations to a police operations room with observers from Hamas and Fatah.

Police received dozens of calls on the first day. And the stations went back to playing songs of national unity.

* * *

An 11-year-old boy looting floor tiles from a ransacked Preventive Security Service compound in the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiya is one of the few clear winners in the factional fighting. The boy, who wouldn't give his name because he was stealing government property, was selling the tiles for 45 cents each and has also ripped 12 window frames from the unguarded complex, which was attacked by Hamas over the weekend.

* * *

Hamas and Fatah have battled to a draw in Gaza over the past several weeks, though the Fatah-allied security forces took a bad hit in the four-day round that ended with a truce Sunday. Nineteen members of the security forces were killed, compared to three from Hamas and seven civilians.

* * *

Abdel Nasser Hamad kept his supermarket in the beachside Rimal neighborhood open throughout the recent fighting, with shutters half-closed to protect his front window against stray bullets.

For four days, he had no customers. On Sunday, business was still slow. Reporters made his day with a $70 purchase of coffee, tea, crackers and other staples.

Outside Hamad's store, we loaded the bags into an armored car and drove back to the apartment. At one junction, gunmen ordered us to stop and searched the car, apparently suspicious that we were transporting weapons. The groceries passed the test and we were allowed to move on.

* * *

The middle ground is not a popular place in Gaza these days. On Sunday, various groups trying to stop the fighting, including a PLO faction and several nongovernmental organizations, set up an open-sided tent near the Parliament building and asked passers-by to join a protest vigil.

About 700 people showed up to sit under the tarp, shake hands and smoke with organizers from the so-called "Bridge of Love" group. That turnout paled in comparison to the thousands Hamas and Fatah can easily mobilize for their rallies.

[Last modified February 6, 2007, 01:26:35]