Nowhere Safe for Gaza Residents

Palestinian fisherman Nimr Bakr,72, lays in a hospital bed after he was beaten up in a mosque for tearing down Hamas posters in Shifa hospital in Gaza City, Saturday, July 9, 2007. As the power struggle between Hamas and Fatah turns increasingly brutal, a terrifying realization has taken hold in Gaza _ nowhere and no one is safe. Everyone's a potential target. Danger and risk once confined to combatants have found their way into homes, schools, mosques. (AP Photo) (AP)

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip -- A hospital doctor is seized after attending his brother's police graduation ceremony and shot in the legs because of his suspected Hamas sympathies. A 72-year-old retired fisherman is beaten up in a mosque for tearing down Hamas posters.

As the power struggle between Hamas and Fatah turns increasingly brutal, a terrifying realization has taken hold in Gaza _ nowhere and no one is safe. Everyone is a potential target. Danger and risk once confined to combatants have found their way into homes, schools, mosques.

Gazans won't discuss politics anymore, for fear of retribution. Ambulance drivers are reluctant to answer emergency calls because they don't know which checkpoint they might come across along the way.

"There's a blanket of fear around the city," said human rights activist Raji Sourani.

Gazans say seven years of Israeli-Palestinian fighting were much easier to deal with than the yearlong power struggle between the Islamic militant Hamas and the Fatah movement of moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Battle lines were clear in the confrontation with Israel, and risks more easily calculated than in the internal fighting that has claimed 200 lives in the past year.

Instilling fear in ordinary people is intentional, said Walid al-Awad, a member of the tiny People's Party who grew up in Lebanon during the civil war there, then moved to Gaza and now tries to mediate between Hamas and Fatah. The combatants want to paralyze civilians and prevent them from "thinking of doing anything against this or that group," he said.

No one knows where the next bullet will come from.

Last week, Dr. Fayez al-Barrawi, a 29-year old physician at a north Gaza hospital, was attending a graduation ceremony for the newest recruits of the Presidential Guard, an elite force loyal to Abbas. One of al-Barrawi's brothers was among the graduates, and the doctor, a Hamas supporter, videotaped the event, held at the Presidential Guard's heavily fortified compound.

Al-Barrawi, who wears a close-cropped beard, often a sign of association with Hamas, said that while filming he was approached by armed men who accused him of spying for Hamas. The doctor said he was dragged away, bundled into a jeep, blindfolded, handcuffed and driven to another location.

There, he was interrogated, beaten, dumped in a field, then shot six times in the legs and one of his kneecaps. Al-Barrawi now lies in a hospital, with metal rods in his legs, and doctors say he might need a year to heal.

Al-Barrawi's attackers apparently were Fatah gunmen. The Presidential Guard said in a statement it was not involved and that the abduction did not take place during the ceremony, as al-Barrawi claims.

Nimr Bakr, the elderly fisherman, is recovering in another hospital from a severe beating that left him with bruises and a dislocated shoulder.

Bakr, who is from a well-known Fatah family, is a volunteer caretaker at the Kahlil Al Rahman mosque in the Shati refugee camp on the outskirts of Gaza City. He is not a friend of Hamas and routinely tears down Hamas posters in the neighborhood on the way to the mosque.

On Saturday, he was attacked by four men he described as Hamas supporters. He said the assailants dragged him into the basement of the mosque, hooded and handcuffed him, then beat him with chairs, rifle butts and sticks.

Bakr said the attackers acted "as if they found a spy who wants to blow up the mosque."

Hamas denied involvement in the attack.

Another Gaza resident, 52-year-old Abul Abed, didn't even have to venture out. The fighting came to his beachfront high-rise in the upscale Tel al-Hawwa neighborhood. Last month, a mortar tore a hole into the facade of his apartment and destroyed his daughters' bedroom.

No one was hurt, but the panicked family of eight hastily fled, at first seeking refuge with relatives. Abul Abed, who wouldn't give his last name for fear of retribution, said he's now furnishing a new apartment in another neighborhood that hasn't yet seen any fighting.

"The national struggle is now turning against me, the citizen," said Abul Abed. "I am afraid to see a friend at night ... I am afraid to go to the beach."

Abul Abed, who sells cosmetics and perfumes, keeps little money in his shop because he worries about armed robbery. Police have reported a 30 percent increase in robberies of shops from 2005 to 2006.

Abul Abed's 7-year old son, Abed, won't go anywhere without his father. The boy asked for Khofa, or "fear treatment," common in Gaza, in which lay healers offer massage with olive oil, often accompanied by readings from the Quran, the Muslim holy book.

One such healer, 28-year-old Adham Abu Nasser from Shati, said he'd get about five or six calls from patients during an Israeli incursion, but treated about 15 people last month.

He said some sought his help after visiting wounded people at the hospital. Others were traumatized by going through checkpoints run by unpredictable gunmen.

"Everything around us now is causing us all to fear," he said. "Everything around us is scary."