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Hamas in Gaza is running out of friends
By William Booth,August 24, 2013
Emad the smuggler was covered in dust, watching buckets of cement and gravel emerge on a crude trolley from the bowels of his tunnel beneath the Egyptian border.
He is one of the few still doing this kind of work.
In the weeks since Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi was ousted in a coup and his allies in the Muslim Brotherhood were declared enemies of the state, Egypt’s military has shut down most of the tunnels that serve as a lifeline for Hamas, the Islamist political and militant organization that governs the Gaza Strip.
“The army now runs Egypt, and the army hates Hamas,” said Emad, who declined to give his full name because the tunnels are, at least technically, illegal. “They could care less what happens to Gaza.”
Under Morsi, hundreds of tunnels were allowed to flourish. Now there are a few dozen. So, fuel prices in Gaza are soaring. Orders for steel and cement go unfilled. Projects to repave roads, build public housing and repair crumbling infrastructure in the impoverished Palestinian enclave have stopped.
Egypt’s new military-led interim government is openly hostile toward Hamas, which was born of the Muslim Brotherhood in the late 1980s. Hamas was ecstatic when Morsi was elected president. But with its close ally now detained at an undisclosed location, the movement is finding itself more isolated than it has been in years.
With the closure of the smuggling tunnels, long lines of idled cars await the sporadic opening of gasoline stations. Electricity, always dodgy here, especially in the heat of summer, has become even more unreliable because of the lack of fuel to run the generators. And forget about speciality items. Only a few Mercedes-Benz sedans are moving through the underground corridor these days.
Many of the tunnels were dug after Hamas took power in Gaza in 2007 and Israel and Egypt responded by closing borders. Over time, Israel and Egypt again opened crossings to the territory of nearly 1.7 million people.
Though it is now possible to move goods into Gaza through the Israeli-controlled Kerem Shalom crossing, Israel restricts certain items it says risk being diverted to terrorist activities — things such as concrete and irrigation pipes, which Israel says could be used to make bunkers and rockets.
With the opening of Kerem Shalom, which is operating at half capacity, Gazans could get most of their goods via Israel. But instead, they use the tunnels for fuel, cooking oil and building materials — and some luxury items — that are cheaper in Egypt because they are subsidized by the government or banned to import by the Israelis.
Hamas and other militant factions also use the tunnels to smuggle weapons and personnel. Exactly why the Egyptian military has closed so many tunnels, but not all, is unclear. Gazans assume they are being punished.
Egyptian authorities are investigating allegations that Morsi conspired with Hamas during the country’s 2011 uprising against former leader Hosni Mubarak.
In Cairo, state and private media accuse Gaza’s leadership of stoking terrorism in the restive Sinai Peninsula, where last week 25 police recruits were kidnapped by alleged militants and shot dead on the side of the road.
Hamas insists it had nothing to do with the attack on Egyptian forces in Sinai. “Egyptian security is very important to us,” said Ahmad Yosef, a former adviser to Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh. “We are in contact daily with the Egyptian intelligence services.”
Yosef said Hamas has asked the Egyptian military to provide proof that Hamas has supplied weapons or fighters to the Sinai, “and they cannot.”
“We are not taking sides,” he said.
Last month, Hamas shut down two news media bureaus in Gaza, saying they had presented “false news” about the Islamist government’s role in Egypt. Saudi-owned al-Arabiya news channel and Palestinian Ma’an News Agency remained closed. Directors of the new outlets deny the charges.
Last week, a group calling itself Tamarod Gaza released a video on its Facebook page calling for protests against the Hamas government on Nov. 11. “Tamarod,” meaning “rebellion” or “mutiny” in Arabic, is the same word used by the Egyptian youth movement that helped to topple Morsi.
In an e-mail exchange, a man who claimed to have a leadership role in Tamarod Gaza said the group was founded by Palestinian youths against Hamas, which he described as corrupt and oppressive. He said the group is calling for elections.
The Internet campaign was enough to get Gazans talking, which drew a quick response from Hamas officials.
“The real mutiny should be against the Israeli occupation and its collaborators,” said Abdul Salam, general secretary for the prime minister’s office in Gaza.
According to news reports from Gaza, Hamas police have been detaining alleged members of the Tamarod movement.
“We are in a critical situation, at the point of a real crisis,” said Hatem Owida, deputy economic minister for the Hamas government.
The Washington Post
Hamas crackdown on Tamarod group reflects panic, analysts say
By Edmund Sanders
Published: August 22, 2013
GAZA CITY — The homemade YouTube video features four masked men in matching T-shirts, standing like soldiers as one reads a statement lambasting Hamas for killing civilians and calling for the overthrow of the Gaza Strip’s Islamist government.
They call their new Palestinian youth group Tamarod Gaza — using the Arabic word for “rebellion” — after the similarly named Egyptian protest movement that helped bring down Islamist President Mohammed Morsi and Hamas’ mentor, the Muslim Brotherhood.
When the brief amateurish video appeared this week, many Gazans laughed it off as a joke, noting that the would-be rebels looked like teenagers blowing off steam.
Hamas, however, didn’t find it as amusing. On Tuesday, its security forces arrested four young men in Gaza who they said had produced the piece, accusing them of collaborating with Egypt and Hamas’ longtime Palestinian rival, Fatah, in the West Bank.
The swift crackdown was the latest sign that Hamas, which has controlled the impoverished seaside Gaza Strip since 2007, is under growing political and financial pressure since the Muslim Brotherhood’s collapse in neighboring Egypt.
In the abrupt reversal of fortune, Hamas has gone from holding near statelike status during Morsi’s rule to being vilified by Egypt’s new military-led government as a terrorist group responsible for inciting unrest in the Sinai Peninsula.
Egypt’s army has reinstated tight border restrictions — partly lifted under Morsi — at the Rafah crossing and destroyed more than half of Gaza’s smuggling tunnels, costing the Gazan economy $100 million to $200 million a month, according to Hamas Economic Minister Aladdin Rafati.
The network of tunnels had been a lifeline for Gaza since Hamas seized control of the enclave, a move that led Israel and Egypt to impose restrictions on the flow of people and goods because of Hamas’ refusal to disavow violence and recognize Israel’s right to exist.
Though Morsi’s government never opened the Rafah border crossing to commercial trade, as many in Hamas had hoped, it substantially relaxed restrictions on individual travel, creating an alternative for Palestinians who are unable to exit Gaza through Israel. Since Morsi’s ouster July 3, hundreds of Palestinians have been stranded, waiting for sporadic border openings so they can move in or out of the territory.
Shipments of Egyptian-produced gasoline through the tunnels have been slashed by nearly 70 percent, resulting in long lines when the fuel is available. (Gasoline from Israel is still easy to find but costs twice as much.) New construction projects have been postponed because cement and other materials can’t be delivered through the tunnels.
Hamas is feeling the pinch too, since it gets a significant portion of its $800 million annual budget from taxes imposed on tunnel commerce, generating an estimated $10 million to $30 million a month. With tax revenue down dramatically, Hamas workers got only half their pay last month and, according to one report, Hamas had to borrow to cover the shortfall.
“The situation is not good and of course we are under pressure, but it’s not the first time we’ve experienced hard times,” Hamas Deputy Foreign Minister Ghazi Hamad said Wednesday. “Survival is in our genes. We know how to make accommodations.”
Critics say Hamas, after initially appearing stunned and paralyzed by Egypt’s turmoil, has responded in recent weeks by tightening its grip in Gaza.
Nighttime security checkpoints on streets are back. Journalists have been arrested or threatened in anonymous phone calls. Two independent news outlets, Maan and Al-Arabiya, were shut down.
“They got much more aggressive after the collapse of Morsi,” said one of Tamarod’s founders, who has been arrested and questioned several times by Hamas security forces. He did not want to be identified for fear of being arrested again.
The young man said Tamarod, launched in April, plans to hold a demonstration Nov. 11 in Gaza and has collected signatures from 32,000 supporters.
“We will start out peaceful, but are ready to die to achieve our goal,” he said.
It remains to be seen whether the movement will catch on with young Gazans. Similar attempts over the last two years to organize large demonstrations of Palestinians fizzled, partly out of fear of retribution by Hamas but also for lack of interest.
Yet Hamas’ harsh response reflects the sense of panic in the organization, said Fathi Sabbah, head of the Palestinian Institute for Communication and Development in Gaza City.
“Hamas is a little paranoid,” he said. “They think that if they close their eyes for five seconds, they’ll lose control.”
At the same time, he said, the group’s political enemies, including the Egyptian army, Fatah and Israel, may see an opportunity to apply further pressure. Sabbah said Hamas would find it difficult to restore ties with Egypt as long as the army remained in power there.
“They want to punish Hamas,” he said.
Meanwhile, Hamas is scrambling to find new international allies. The Muslim Brotherhood was the group’s chief backer, politically and financially, but now it’s fighting for its own survival.
“They put all their eggs in the basket of the Muslim Brotherhood and they lost,” said Ahmed Assaf, a senior official with Fatah.
Until two years ago, Iran was also a key Hamas benefactor, but that relationship cooled after Hamas refused to back Syrian President Bashar Assad, an ally of Iran, and moved its political bureau out of Damascus, the Syrian capital.
Hamas political chief Khaled Meshaal moved to Qatar, but the new emir, Sheik Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, who took over from his father in June, is facing pressure from Persian Gulf countries to tone down Qatar’s support for Hamas.
“They need to find a new patron, but they’ve burned through most of them,” said Jonathan Schanzer, analyst at the conservative Foundation for Defense of Democracies in Washington. “There’s a potential to bankrupt the movement.”
Hamas officials downplayed their financial problems and predicted that relations with Egypt would normalize once the democratic process there was restored.
“We’re very cool and relaxed,” said Hamad, the deputy foreign minister. “We’re not running around the world, knocking on doors for help. We just have to be patient. We still don’t know what the outcome in Egypt will be. You can’t ignore the Muslim Brotherhood. They can come back.”
Los Angeles Times
Gaza gears up for anti-Hamas Tamarod protest group
10 November 2013, Last updated at 04:18 GMT
By Rushdi Abualouf
BBC News, Gaza City
The movement is hoping its online support will translate to street protests
The Islamist Hamas government in the Gaza Strip is already feeling the strain after its allies in the Muslim Brotherhood were ousted from power following mass rallies in neighbouring Egypt.
Now a new protest group set up by young Palestinians, called Tamarod ("Revolt"), seeks to add to the pressure.
University students were inspired by the Egyptian Tamarod movement, which was instrumental in organising street protests against the then-President Mohammed Morsi.
They are planning demonstrations in Gaza on Monday to coincide with the ninth anniversary of the death of the Palestinian President Yasser Arafat.
Yet it is unclear how much public support they will garner.
"We were able to collect 45,000 signatures in support of a campaign to rebel against the rule of Hamas on 11/11," says one of the founders of the group, who has been arrested several times by Hamas security forces.
He did not want to be named for reasons of safety.
"Our plan is to hold a peaceful demonstration to ask the Hamas government to resign and call for elections".
'Abandoned goals'
The idea carries heavy risks.
"We have information that Hamas security forces received orders to use force against our rebels but this won't deter us," the Tamarod member adds.
More than 70,000 people have "liked" the Tamarod Gaza Facebook page, which publishes daily updates criticising Hamas.
The group claims that Hamas has abandoned its goal of armed resistance against Israel since taking over Gaza by force when it routed Fatah rivals in 2007, the year after Hamas won Palestinian general elections.
Tamarod also argues that the Hamas security agency has repressed and intimidated Palestinians.
On Facebook, it accuses the Hamas government of failing "to provide a decent life" by imposing heavy taxes on residents exhausted by Israel's blockade that was tightened after it came to power.
Israel says its measures are for security reasons, while human rights groups have said it amounts to collective punishment.
Despite a groundswell of "virtual" support for Tamarod, Hamas officials dismiss the movement is illusory.
"The rebel movement is fake and only exists through the virtual world of the Internet. There is no activity on the ground," says Islam Shahwan, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry in Gaza.
"We will assess the security situation if protests erupt in the Gaza Strip on 11 November."
Activists arrested
Youssef Rizqa, a political adviser to the Hamas prime minister, said Hamas was "not concerned about the threat to hold 11 November protests. The relevant authorities will deal with any request for a demonstration in accordance with the law".
However there are signs that Hamas police are taking steps to quash any demonstrations in advance. Already dozens of Tamarod activists have been arrested and nighttime security checkpoints are back on streets.
"Hamas deals with the situation in a very aggressive way," says Fathi Sabah, Director of the Palestinian Institute for Communication and Development.
Evenso, Mr Sabah believes that Tamarod does not have enough momentum to effect change in Gaza.
"The situation here is different from Egypt. So far the group was unable to attract prominent figures in the community," he says.
Hamas accuses its rival political faction, Fatah - which dominates the Palestinian Authority (PA) controlling parts of the West Bank - and members of the PA intelligence services of funding and managing Tamarod. Fatah denies involvement.
Previous attempts to stage mass demonstrations in Gaza have failed to take off.
Hamas was able to contain planned protests on 15 March 2010 with little violence and no casualties.
"Hamas has a very strong military wing and a big security agency that can rein in any action against them," says Adnan Abu Amer, a political analyst.
"Recent displays on the streets organised by Hamas's armed forces were meant to send a message to the Tamarod campaign."
Whether the Palestinian Tamarod will take heed remains to be seen.
BBC News
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Une ONG dénonce une campagne d'arrestations du Hamas à Gaza
AFP | 13/11/2013 | 15h52
Le Centre palestinien pour les droits de l'Homme (PCHR), basé à Gaza, a dénoncé mercredi une campagne d'arrestation d'opposant présumés au Hamas, au pouvoir dans le territoire palestinien, faisant état de témoignages de "torture et de traitement dégradant".
Le ministre de l'Intérieur du gouvernement du Hamas, Fathi Hammad, a pour sa part minimisé l'importance du mouvement "Tamarrod" (rébellion), dont l'appel sur les réseaux sociaux à manifester lundi à Gaza contre le mouvement islamiste n'a pas été suivi, le qualifiant de "bulles plus faibles que des bulles de savon".
Dans un communiqué, le PCHR se déclare "inquiet par la campagne de convocations et d'arrestations lancée contre des dizaines de personnes, y compris des membres du Fatah et des enfants, dans la bande de Gaza ces dernières semaines".
Selon le texte, cette campagne s'est intensifiée "à l'approche de l'appel de Tamarrod pour le 11 novembre, date anniversaire de la mort du président Yasser Arafat", dirigeant historique palestinien et fondateur du Fatah, mouvement rival du Hamas.
Certaines personnes relâchées ont témoigné "avoir été soumises à la torture, y compris des coups de bâton sur les mains et les pieds, frappées à coups de poing sur tout le corps, enchaînées, et forcées à rester debout pendant des heures", souligne l'ONG.
D'autres ont "été contraintes de signer des engagements à respecter la loi, ne pas participer à des manifestations et ne pas se trouver dans des zones de friction avec la police", précise-t-elle.
Interrogé par l'AFP, le porte-parole du ministère de l'Intérieur s'est refusé à tout commentaire dans l'immédiat.
"Ce Tamarrod n'était que des bulles, plus faibles que des bulles de savon, plus faibles que l'écume de la mer, plus faibles que des toiles d'araignée", a martelé mercredi M. Hammad.
"Il n'y a pas de place pour les collaborateurs, les hypocrites et les rebelles", a-t-il déclaré dans un discours devant les forces de sécurité à Gaza.
Le Hamas s'était félicité lundi soir de "l'échec de ce soi-disant 'Tamarrod Gaza' à provoquer le chaos dans la bande de Gaza, où la vie a suivi son cours normal".
Le mot d'ordre de ce groupe inconnu, qui a repris le nom des artisans de la mobilisation en Egypte contre le président islamiste Mohamed Morsi, déposé par l'armée, n'a pas été suivi, face à une visibilité dissuasive des services de sécurité.
L’Orient Le Jour
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