Reuters/Gaza

Policemen kissed him, crowds mobbed him and gunfire rattled out in celebration as Hamas leader Khalid Mishal made his first ever visit to the Gaza Strip.

But the scenes of joy at his arrival in this small splinter of land could not disguise deep-rooted disunity between the Palestinian factions, ensuring its people remain divided both geographically and politically.

Born in the nearby West Bank, 56-year-old Mishal has lived in exile for most of his life.

The target of a botched Israeli assassination plot in 1997, Mishal felt safe enough to come to Gaza yesterday, following last month’s short, deadly conflict with the Jewish state.  

Egypt underwrote the ceasefire, something that is likely to have reassured Mishal that Israel would not try to kill him on such a visit.

He was given a hero’s welcome and policemen, lined up neatly to welcome him as he crossed the Egyptian border, failed to maintain any semblance of discipline, breaking rank to surround the bearded Mishal and seeking to hug and touch him.

“I kissed his head,” said 27-year-old policeman Mohamed Abed. “This is the most beautiful day in my life,” he said before calling his wife to check if she had seen him on Hamas television, which broadcast the visit live throughout the day.

A haphazard escort of flag-carrying security guards followed Mishal’s motorcade along Gaza’s often bumpy roads.  

Women and children stood and waved while crowds chanted their thanks to Hamas fighters who waged a rocket war against Israel in the recent, eight-day conflict that killed some 170 Palestinians and six Israelis - mostly civilians.

“Gaza lives forever thanks to its fighters and people,” said 44-year-old public sector worker, Abu Mohamed.

“Mishal’s visit is a first step. We hope Fatah and Hamas will join hands for the sake of Palestine,” he added, referring to the two main forces on the Palestinian political landscape.

Hamas seized control of Gaza in a brief civil war against its secular rival Fatah in 2007. Fatah, led by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, still governs in the West Bank and repeated attempts to overcome the divide have ended in acrimony.

“I had hoped Mishal would come hand in hand with Abu Mazen (Abbas). That would have been a real national day,” said Umm Ali, a middle-aged woman standing on a chair to get a glimpse of the Hamas leader previously only seen here on posters or TV.

Clearly aware of the yearning for reconciliation, Mishal repeatedly returned to the subject during his many stops around Gaza, home to some 1.7mn mostly impoverished Palestinians.

“With God’s will ... reconciliation will be achieved.  National unity is at hand,” Mishal shouted through a microphone at the ruins of a house destroyed in an Israeli air strike last month that killed 12 civilians, including four children.

Yellow Fatah flags fluttered alongside the Hamas colours on some streets and a senior figure from the movement was one of the first to greet Mishal as he entered the enclave.

But reconciliation is easier said than done.  

While Hamas promotes armed resistance against the Jewish state, Fatah says it wants a negotiated deal with Israel.  Equally problematic, both are embedded in their power bases, with their own security forces that they do not want to give up.

“Certainly we want unity and without it we will remain weak, but we should rely on our guns until Abu Mazen (Abbas) and Fatah decide to join hands with us,” said Hussein Abu Suhaib, 30, sporting a long beard and a wearing a green Hamas cap.

 

Deadly raid  by Israel on  home ‘broke laws of war’

Agencies/Jerusalem

The Israeli army committed a clear violation of the laws of war when it killed 12 Palestinians, including women and children, in an air strike on a Gaza home last month, Human Rights Watch charged yesterday.

The raid, carried out during Israel’s eight-day Operation Pillar of Defence, was on the home of a family whose father, Mohamed Jamal al-Dallu, 29, the Israelis described as a “known terrorist”.

The strike, the deadliest during the conflict that ended on November 22, killed Dallu, a member of the Hamas police force, nine members of his family and two neighbours, said HRW.

“Even if Dallu, a low-ranking police officer, was a legitimate military target under the laws of war, the likelihood that the attack on a civilian home would have killed large numbers of civilians made it unlawfully disproportionate,” it said.

The strike drew international condemnation, with many observers particularly shocked by the deaths of children.

The Israeli military originally said the strike had targeted a Hamas member responsible for firing rockets into Israel, Yehia Rabea, without saying whether he was inside the Dallu building.

But army spokeswoman Avital Leibovich later said he “was a known terror operative affiliated with the military wing of Hamas”.

In its statement yesterday, the New York-based HRW said the Israeli forces dropped what appeared to have been a “large aerial bomb” on the three-storey home.

“Israel needs to explain why it bombed this house filled with civilians,” said Fred Abrahams, a special adviser at HRW who conducted research in Gaza. “Anyone who violated the law should be appropriately punished.”

“Attacks in which the expected civilian loss exceeds the anticipated military gain are serious violations of the laws of war,” HRW said.

 “The Israeli claim that the attack on the Dallu home was justified is unsupported by the facts,” said Abrahams.

The Israeli military said yesterday that its intelligence had identified the Dallu home as “the hideout of a senior Hamas militant who played an important role in the organisation’s rocket-launching infrastructure”.

“While the loss of life on both sides is regrettable, responsibility ultimately lies with terror operatives who render the civilian population a human shield by using civilian buildings as hideouts or weapon depots,” it said.

It pledged to provide a “full response” to the HRW report in the coming days.

During the conflict, 174 Palestinians were killed—including more than 100 civilians, among them at least 37 children and 14 women—and six Israelis, two soldiers and four civilians including a woman, according to the two sides.