GAZA: Gaza shopkeepers are forced to choose between Hamas and Fatah as Fatah issues a one-day strike call

Record ID: 338847

  • Title: GAZA: Gaza shopkeepers are forced to choose between Hamas and Fatah as Fatah issues a one-day strike call
  • Date: 9th September 2007
  • Summary: STUDENTS WALKING DOWN THE STREET
  • Embargoed: 24th September 2007 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: Domestic Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA71XLNBYWLL34LYUUFJ0AL0MVX
  • Story Text: Gaza shopkeepers are forced to choose between Hamas and Fatah as Fatah issues a one-day strike call.
    A one-day general strike called by President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah faction on Sunday (September 9) put Gaza shopkeepers in the precarious position of having to choose sides in its bitter rivalry with Hamas Islamists ruling the territory.
    The business owners, who have abided by strike calls in the past to protest against Israeli occupation, found themselves weighing the personal cost of shutting down and angering Hamas or staying open and risking retaliation by Fatah.
    Fatah ordered the strike after violence on Friday (September 7) in which Hamas security men, wielding clubs and firing in the air, broke up outdoor prayer meetings the once-dominant faction organised in defiance of a ban on such gatherings.
    Standing outside an ice cream shop that remained open, a youth lit a petrol bomb and hurled it inside, setting the business ablaze, local residents said.
    On Gaza's main street, about half of the shops were closed. Many people did not send their children to school.
    "Today we are on strike according to the Palestinian president's decision, the head of the PLO, the legal representative for Palestinians, because of the attacks on journalists, and all the attacks on Friday,"
    said one student as he and several friends headed home early.
    A pro-Fatah school principal in southern Gaza Strip said he was briefly held by Hamas security forces for closing down the school. He was later released on condition he ignore any future strike calls.
    Fatah lost control of the Gaza Strip to Hamas in fighting three months ago. The Hamas administration in the territory described the strike as "pointless and an attempt to restore chaos".
    Factions in the Fatah-led Palestine Liberation Organisation said anyone who defied the strike call would be viewed as an opponent of the PLO.
    Some business owners told Reuters they have been warned by members of Hamas-led Executive Force their shops would be shut down permanently if they closed their doors on Sunday.
    A spokesman for the Hamas administration in Gaza denied any such warnings had been issued.
    After Friday's clashes in which 20 people were hurt, Reyad al-Maliki, information minister of the West Bank-based Palestinian government, said: "What we saw in Gaza was the beginning of a third Intifada, against Hamas occupation".
    Palestinians launched what they called two uprisings against Israeli occupation, in 1987 and 2000.
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