| A one-day general strike called by President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah faction for Sunday put Gaza shopkeepers in the precarious position of having to choose sides in its bitter rivalry with Hamas Islamists ruling the territory. The business owners, who have abided by strike calls in the past to protest against Israeli occupation, found themselves weighing the personal cost of shutting down and angering Hamas or staying open and risking retaliation by Fatah. “Gaza is like a ship with two captains,” said one shop owner who declined to give his name. “Each captain is ordering passengers to his side of the boat. In the end, the ship will sink.” Fatah ordered the strike after violence on Friday in which Hamas security men, wielding clubs and firing in the air, broke up outdoor prayer meetings the once-dominant faction organised in defiance of a ban on such gatherings. |