THE festering refugee camp of Khan Yunis, where the stench of sewage hangs over potholed dirt roads and concrete blockhouses crowded with 270,000 Palestinians, has long been fertile soil for radical groups such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Now there are growing indications it is also becoming a breeding ground for Al-Qaeda.Palestinian security officials claim to have growing evidence that Osama Bin LadenÂ’s terror network, which has hitherto shown little interest in Gaza and the West Bank, is recruiting among the angry young men who see little beyond a future of attacking Israel.
The organisation has been helped by the lawlessness that has engulfed the Palestinian territories since Hamas emerged as the surprise winner of parliamentary elections on January 25 and formed a government.
“There is such despair in Gaza: some are ready to sacrifice anything and this creates fertile soil for growing Al-Qaeda,” said Ashraf Juma, a former Fatah fighter who spent 18 years in Israeli prisons and is now a Palestinian legislator representing Rafah — a city that like nearby Khan Yunis is an ideal recruitment area.
“They support Al-Qaeda because they are angry at the American support for Israel and they see Al-Qaeda hurting the Americans. We have a proverb to describe this: ‘The enemy of my enemy is my friend’.”
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, has denounced Hamas for taking part in elections under Israeli occupation and claimed that Palestinians had “other choices” — taken as a reference to his organisation.
Analysts believe that, as its fortunes wane in Iraq, Al-Qaeda thinks some form of coup in Gaza or the West Bank could help it increase support across the Middle East, where the fate of the Palestinians is a symbol of the wider Arab cause.
Any group that wants to fight will have no problem finding weapons; Gaza is awash with guns. HamasÂ’s policy on rooting out Al-Qaeda is contradictory. Security forces charged with tracking down the organisation have no guidelines and Hamas has said it will not arrest anyone resisting Israel. Meanwhile police officers have not been paid for March and there is scant prospect of any wages arriving soon.
“No one knows what is the security policy of the interior minister,” said Samir Masharawi, head of Fatah in Gaza, who liaises between the various Palestinian factions and hopes he will not have to add Al-Qaeda to his list.
“Hamas’s main strategy has been resistance and jihad, and now they are the government, they are embarrassed to say we should arrest those who are making attacks (on Israel).”
Even he is worried; the interview, conducted in his house, was punctuated by the sound of shells fired into Gaza by Israeli tanks just across the border.
The treasury is empty: Hamas needs £68.8m to pay 140,000 government workers. The Americans, Canadians and Europeans have cut funding to try to pressure the organisation into moderating its outright rejection of an Israeli state.
The lack of direction from the top was a cause of black humour at GazaÂ’s central police station last week, where they joked that the only word they had heard from Said al-Siyam, the new interior minister, was that they should grow beards.
The laughter stopped when gunfire erupted all around: I was hustled inside while police fired back at their assailants, only to shout “stop firing” when they realised they were fellow policemen. “We have other things to worry about, as you see,” said Abdul Rahman, an officer.
It is almost impossible to underestimate the extent of the lawlessness that now reigns. Last month two families went to war over a donkey that kicked and damaged a car. The death toll had reached six by the time they ended their feud.
It is difficult to get concrete answers on policy from Hamas beyond details such as the beard directive. In an interview over cups of sweet coffee, Ismail Haniya, the prime minister and supposed moderate face of the party, said he wanted to focus on civil affairs such as disorder and tribal conflicts.
But there was no public budging from HamasÂ’s refusal to recognise Israel, although privately the organisation has conceded that it could negotiate on the basis of the borders of 1967, when Israel seized the West Bank and Gaza, but it needs time to win over its members.
Would Hamas agree to a two-state solution? “Before we negotiate with Israel, we need to know on what basis,” he said. “We want a Palestinian state, with Jerusalem as its capital.” Even the translator was foxed. Did that mean Hamas agreed to a two-state solution? “I didn’t say that.” Haniya was clear, however, in his denunciation of the West. “The decisions taken by the American administration and the West have only one aim, to blackmail our government.”
While Hamas fiddles, the clock is ticking in Israel. Ehud Olmert, the new prime minister, has made it clear that unless Hamas recognises Israel and renounces violence he will largely withdraw from the West Bank, while setting borders that run deep into the occupied territory to take in large Jewish settlements.
There is predictable schadenfreude among members of the former Fatah administration, who were constantly undermined by HamasÂ’s attacks on Israel before the group took over the administration.
“Hamas is acting as if it is isolated on the moon and can keep two identities, government and opposition,” said Rashid abu Shabak, a Fatah leader appointed last week by President Mahmoud Abbas, despite Hamas’s furious objections, as security director for the West Bank and Gaza. “Hamas jumped overnight from being the group that attacked Israel to the government that has to arrest people who do that.”
In the meantime, as the occupied territories slip deeper into chaos, Yusef al-Siam, the preventive security chief of Rafah, is worried that he has less to do.
Had his work become more difficult as the situation deteriorates? “I’m less busy,” he said. “I used to arrest Hamas. Now they’re the government.”