‘Gazans are with whoever gives us a bag of flour’

ON HAMAS’S first day of full rule in Gaza, crowds looted strongholds of the rival Fatah yesterday — stripping the home of one of the party’s strongmen down to the flower pots — and militants sent a man plunging to his death from a rooftop.

But the violence, which came despite a Hamas offer of amnesty for Fatah, was sporadic. Gaza’s streets, deserted in the past week of fighting, were crowded with cars, pedestrians and triumphant fighters with the Islamic militant group.

Safe in Ramallah, Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, appointed his own prime minister yesterday after the Hamas prime minister, Ismail Hani-yeh, ignored the president’s announcement that he had been fired. Hamas’ military takeover of Gaza, after five days of battle, formalised the separation between Gaza and the West Bank, which lie on either side of Israel.

The moderate government Mr Abbas plans to appoint will have no say in Gaza, but stands a stronger chance than the Hamas-Fatah coalition it replaces of restoring foreign aid to the West Bank. He drew support — either explicitly or tacitly — from the European Union, the United Nations, Egypt and Jordan.

A resident of a Hamas-dominated neighbourhood, identifying himself only as “Yousef” for fear of reprisal, said Gazans would always back the winner, regardless of ideology.

“Today everybody is with Hamas because Hamas won the battle. If Fatah had won the battle they’d be with Fatah. We are a hungry people, we are with whoever gives us a bag of flour and a food coupon,” said Yousef. “Me, I’m with God and a bag of flour.”

Palestinians in the West Bank viewed the Hamas takeover of Gaza with a mixture of fear and hope — realising that it could bring needed foreign aid while dealing a major blow to dreams of Palestinian statehood.

Ahmed al-Aziz, a merchant in Ramallah, said the fenced-in Gazans had little to lose.

“Everybody here is worried about his interests or his business. In Gaza, people are poor. They don’t have work,” he said.

Fleeing aboard a fishing boat on the Mediterranean, 97 senior members of Fatah’s security and administrative apparatus arrived in Egypt hours after Hamas fighters took control of Gaza, an Egyptian security official said.

The house of former Gaza strongman, Mohammed Dahlan, a longtime nemesis of Hamas, was overrun, and looters stripped it of everything from windows and doors to flower pots.

More than 90 people were killed in five days of fighting, and dozens wounded.