BEIT HANOUN, Gaza Strip, Jan. 25 -- When Hamas guerrillas fired four rockets from the fields around this town at the Israeli city of Sderot just across the border last June and killed two people, the Israeli military's response was quick and massive, turning this impoverished farm town into a war zone for the next 47 days.
In surveys of the damage after the troops withdrew, the United Nations and other organizations said 19 Palestinians were killed and 154 injured, 507 acres of agricultural land were leveled, about 3,100 fruit trees were uprooted, 17 residential buildings housing 24 families were destroyed, eight factories were demolished, and the road, water, sewer and electrical networks were ravaged.
Viza Zaaneen, right, a 45-year-old mother of 14 in Beit Hanoun, in northern Gaza, is a Hamas-affiliated candidate in Thursday's elections.
(Photos Lefteris Pitarakis -- AP)
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Today, the battered and oft-besieged town of 32,000 is a different sort of battleground. The streets are lined with green and red party flags, billboards urge residents to get out and vote, buildings are bedecked with campaign posters and the streets echo with the sounds of lively partisan debate.
On Thursday, for the first time, Beit Hanoun and nine other towns in the Gaza Strip will hold municipal elections, choosing members of local councils from among 414 candidates, many of whom belong to radical groups listed by the United States as terrorist organizations, including Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and Hamas, officially known as the Islamic Resistance Movement. For the 14,400 voters of Beit Hanoun, the elections offer the opportunity to deliver a message to Hamas and the other groups that have used the surrounding olive and orange groves as cover for launching homemade rockets across the border at Sderot.
Until December, Palestinians in the West Bank had not held local elections since 1976; Gaza has never elected local leaders. But Thursday's vote -- the second phase of a four-part municipal balloting procedure -- is part of an extraordinary string of elections after years of virtual one-man rule by Yasser Arafat, who died in November.
This month, Palestinians elected a successor to Arafat as president of the Palestinian Authority. In July, they will go to the polls to elect a new parliament, and later this spring and in the fall the final two phases of the local elections are planned for the towns and cities in Gaza and the West Bank that did not vote in the first two rounds.
Some Palestinians say that the local and legislative elections could be key steps toward transforming Palestinian armed groups -- some of which, like Hamas, are pledged to Israel's destruction -- into more moderate political organizations.
"These municipal elections are very important because they signal that Hamas is joining the system," said Ziad Abu Amr, an independent legislator from Gaza City who has been a mediator in recent cease-fire talks between Palestinian militant groups and the new president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas.
A senior Hamas spokesman, Mushir Masri, said the party, which boycotted the presidential vote and earlier Palestinian Authority elections, was willing to participate in municipal elections because "we went through a period when political decisions were made unilaterally, and it's time for everybody to take part. Our people were pushing for us to take part."
Political analysts say it is unclear how the various parties will fare Thursday, when 90,600 voters will cast ballots for 414 candidates vying for 118 seats on 10 local councils. Candidates are not running according to party or factional affiliation because the elections are supposed to be about local services, not national issues.
Many voters in tightknit, traditional Beit Hanoun said the most important factor in these races was family ties. "People aren't looking for someone to serve the town. They're looking for someone related to them" who can help in a pinch, said Ahmed Kafarna, 26, a taxi driver.
Still, most candidates are running on slates that can be clearly identified with a group. Hamas-affiliated candidates in Beit Hanoun, for instance, are on the Change and Reform List, while candidates from Fatah, the political movement of Arafat and Abbas, are on the Martyrs List.
"We are not running for this election as Hamas. We are here to change and reform. . . . This is what people want and what we're going to do," said the Change and Reform List's campaign spokesman in Beit Hanoun, Hamed Abu Harbid, 25. "But everybody knows we belong to Hamas."
Walid Humidin, 44, an unemployed water quality expert and Hamas candidate, said that while the local elections were not about politics and methods of resistance, the Hamas message to voters was, in effect: You trusted us with the resistance, now trust us with the government.
"We also are offering an Islamic style of service," Humidin said, describing it as "transparency, no corruption. Beit Hanoun needs transparency and equality in the distribution of services and benefits, and the best people to carry that out are people who offer the Islamic style, because they fear God."
Abu Harbid, the local campaign spokesman, dismissed the notion that Beit Hanoun's voters would punish Hamas at the ballot box because its rocket attacks brought Israeli incursions upon them. "People are not against the launching of rockets here. . . . They understand they are a reaction to the occupation," he said. "Hamas is a social movement with a long history of social services, and the resistance is loved."
Many Beit Hanoun voters expressed ambivalence about the attacks. One of those, Tayseer Basyuni, 39, whose house was occupied by Israeli soldiers during last summer's incursion, questioned whether Hamas or any group would be held accountable at the polls.
"Everyone does what he thinks is best for the country," he said. "Hamas thinks the rockets are helpful, and I might disagree, but in the end, it's the occupation that's responsible for all of this. If there was a just peace, these rockets wouldn't be launched."
