It’s hard to tell who started the latest dispute between Palestinian factions Fatah and Hamas. Was it an arrest campaign by the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, or a major wave of arrests of Fatah operatives by Hamas in the Gaza Strip?
Either way, one thing is clear: The fallout from the current tussle between the rival groups will surely be felt by Israel, including in the form of an escalation in violence.
The latest headline coming from intra-Palestinian politics has been PA staff abandoning the Rafah crossing, a step that has caused the closure of the only passage for Gazans to travel overseas.
The crossing had been operating for many months with Egypt’s blessing, manned by PA staff, significantly easing the feeling of being besieged in Gaza. Though exit was by no means free, and not many people had been permitted to pass through, the crossing’s continued operation gave the population some feeling of change.
That ended when the PA announced in recent days that it was evacuating the officials who had been operating the crossing and supervising the entries and exits from Gaza. The Egyptians, who refuse to cooperate with the Hamas terror group as a government authority, reacted by closing their side of the crossing.
Hamas, true to form, accused Ramallah of “declaring war” on Gaza, but conveniently ignored what led the PA to take such a step.
Fatah had been preparing to hold a mass rally in Gaza commemorating the movement’s anniversary on January 1, but Hamas prevented that by various means, including an exceptionally widespread arrest campaign. Some 500 Fatah operative were arrested or taken in for questioning in the days leading up to that planned anniversary, according to Fatah; explanatory material was confiscated; and unknown assailants broke into the PA’s TV and radio offices in Gaza and caused extensive damage to the property and equipment.
Those steps apparently crossed a few red lines in the sensitive status quo between the organizations in the PA’s eyes, leading to the closure of the Rafah crossing.
That is when the war of words and threats began. Senior Fatah officials such as Azzam al-Ahmad have threatened that the removal of officials from the Rafah crossing was just the first step out of many that will topple Hamas, which openly seeks Israel’s destruction and wrested control of Gaza from the PA in a violent coup in 2007.
The PA’s approach to Gaza, according to those senior Fatah officials, is “all or nothing” — meaning, either Hamas surrenders all aspects of leadership in Gaza to the PA, or the PA cuts itself off completely from the Strip.
According to a report in the London-based Arabic-language daily Asharq Al-Awsat, PA President Mahmoud Abbas conveyed a clear message to the Egyptians during his recent visit to Cairo that he intends to take stronger measures against Gaza, including in the fields of health and education. That is essentially a threat to cut PA funds to the Strip, which could drag the already impoverished population there into an unprecedented crisis.
Crises and instances of deterioration in Hamas-Fatah relations have frequently led to an increase in tensions with Israel: more border protests, rocket fire and other incidents, such as the explosive device attached to balloons that was launched into Israel on Sunday and prompted the IDF to strike in Gaza in retaliation.
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