In Gaza, New Hamas-Dominated Council Attends to Basics

Public Services Win Praise of Residents

BEIT HANOUN, Gaza Strip -- For the first time in the half-century that he's lived on a nameless dusty lane on the periphery of town, Mohammad Ali has a streetlight.

A few weeks ago, his grandchildren rode a bus to their school for the first time, eliminating the usual one-hour walk.

Ali, 63, the father of 16 children and a longtime loyalist of the late Yasser Arafat and his secular Fatah political movement, gives all the credit for the improvements in his family's daily life to the newly elected mayor and town council, now dominated by the Islamic Resistance Movement, known as Hamas.

"It's all about honesty," said Ali, his sinewy frame draped in a long white robe, his jaw covered with white bristle. "All these years, where did the money go? We haven't seen any of it. The leadership of Hamas is straightforward -- they don't discriminate between rich and poor, weak or strong."

In Beit Hanoun, Hamas candidates won 10 of the 13 council seats in local elections held in January. The mayor, chosen from among the council members, is Nazek Kafarna, 39, one of the most popular religious leaders in town.

Hamas -- with its armed wing, the Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades -- is condemned by the United States as a terrorist organization and reviled by Israel as the perpetrator of some of the deadliest suicide bombings of the conflict between Palestinians and Israelis. At the same time, Hamas has won respect among Palestinians by providing education and health programs. Now, when the U.S. and Israeli governments are demanding greater democratization of the Palestinian Authority, voters in the West Bank and Gaza are handing a sizable share of power to a group that many U.S. and Israeli leaders associate more closely with terrorism than with political reform.

Before a third round of municipal elections was held on May 5 -- the others were in December and January -- Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon demanded that Hamas not run in the more important July parliamentary elections unless it disarmed. Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom said Israel should reconsider its plan to withdraw settlers and soldiers from the Gaza Strip if Hamas and other Islamic parties won significant representation in July; Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz countered immediately that the plan would go through regardless of Palestinian political developments.

"This is the choice of the community," said Walid Humidin, 44, one of Beit Hanoun's Hamas council members and a researcher at Gaza's Islamic University. "The world has to accept and respect their choice."

Candidates aligned with Fatah, which has been the dominant Palestinian party for decades, have won the most local council seats overall in both Gaza and the West Bank. But Hamas has been victorious in the larger, more influential cities where it has capitalized on disorganization and bickering within Fatah, as well as its reputation for corruption.

In addition to the victory in Beit Hanoun, Hamas this month claimed an overwhelming majority of seats on councils in the Gaza cities of Rafah and Bureij. It also edged out Fatah candidates in Beit Lahiya, a major town just across the highway from Beit Hanoun. In the West Bank, Hamas won all 15 seats in Qalqilya and majorities in other major municipalities.

In Beit Hanoun, and in communities across Gaza and the West Bank, Islamic politicians are earning wide support using old-fashioned tactics valued the world over: fixing potholes, picking up garbage and turning on the lights.

"The most important thing we've done at the street level is install streetlights and clean the roads," said Mohammed Masri, 30, a Hamas council member and director of an Islamic education center.