Factional Fighting Clouds Gaza's Future

The charities of Hamas have long provided medical care for the sick, food for the hungry and homes for the homeless. Its armed wing has bolstered the group's popularity with attacks on Israeli targets. And Hamas appears to be more cohesive than Arafat's Fatah movement and more attractive to some Palestinians because its leaders seem to eschew corruption while pressing the fight against Israel.

Polls show support for Hamas growing from 15 percent to 25 percent of Gazans surveyed in the past four years, placing it ahead of any other group, including Fatah.

"Hamas delivered what the public wanted: violence," said Shikaki, the Palestinian pollster. "Every time the Israelis attacked, with every checkpoint, every incidence of humiliation and injury, the control shifted to Hamas."

At times, tensions among rival factions have seemed to threaten civil war. But Mashrawi, the Fatah member who has also been a key negotiator among factions, said many Palestinian leaders have a long history of working together, such as when they shared Israeli prison cells and negotiated to keep order. They are also capable of negotiating some form of shared governance, he said.

But unity has yet to be achieved. Hamas says it will continue to fight Israel until Israeli forces have withdrawn completely from Gaza, a stance other Palestinian leaders warn could lead to a further swing into chaos during early phases of any withdrawal. And even if Hamas and the Palestinian Authority were to agree jointly to a cease-fire with Israel, as many as 20 percent of the factional fighters in Gaza would be unlikely to abide by it, Mashrawi estimated.

The factional talks that were cut off in the spring resumed June 13 with four Hamas members and four representatives of Fatah, according to Mashrawi, who attended. By the end of that week, Hamas had publicly demanded a share in the government. In the past, the group, which opposed the Oslo peace accords, rejected all participation in the authority.

But in a year when overtures to peace have shown halting progress, the violence they are intended to overcome has scarcely paused. Palestinian armed groups have attacked one another with such frequency that the incidents rarely make headlines. One exception was in February, when five men shot their way out of police headquarters in Gaza City, killing one policeman and injuring 10. The attackers were members of a preventive security squad formed in the 1990s to pursue militants fighting Israel.

Abu Samhadaneh, the Palestinian Special Office chief, said too many institutions were created because of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and have thrived during the current uprising. As useful as they have been in the fight against Israeli occupation, he said, their continued existence helps keep the Gaza Strip volatile.

"We need an enemy to fight against," he said. "Struggle is something clean. Politics is dirty."