They're cursed, I tells ya! Cursed!!!
It began with a kidnapping, a beating and the theft of a white Mitsubishi saloon car. Two months on, Omar Yusuf Hadad, 77, a retired businessman, sat in an armchair in his flat in Gaza City and calmly admitted that his family had captured, questioned, beaten and killed one of their neighbors. Then, with impunity, they dumped his body in the street just outside their own apartment block.
I'm a simple retired businessman. With interesting...hobbies.
"Yes, we kidnapped him and made our own investigation. He admitted his crime and so we shot him in the street, among the sewage, just 50m away from here," he said. "This is how it is now: Families are taking justice by themselves. I got my rights and now I feel relaxed."
I blew off some steam. It's like...Gaza therapy. Everything's okay now. Until the next time...
Omar Hadad oversaw the killing of his neighbor to avenge the murder 10 days earlier of his own son. There is now a cycle of family feuds in Gaza, an endless toll of kidnapping and murder fueled by the political and factional violence still tearing this small strip of land apart.
Leave da gun. Take da falafel...
A rare summit seven weeks ago in the Saudi city of Mecca was supposed to have stopped the infighting. It brought together the leaders of the rival Palestinian movements Hamas and Fatah to halt the slide towards civil war. But accounts from Palestinians on the ground suggest the enmity continues and the new, long-awaited, coalition government is struggling to rein in the violence.
Jeez, I had such high hopes...
Caught up in this continued lawlessness is Alan Johnston, the respected BBC Gaza correspondent who was kidnapped three weeks ago and who, to the growing concern of his colleagues, is still being held. Although a large criminal clan is suspected of being behind the kidnapping, it is still not clear precisely who holds Johnston or what they want. There were more warnings last week that gunmen were hunting for other foreigners to kidnap. The failure of the new government to resolve what has now become the longest-running hostage case shows the scale of the crisis.
Alan Johnston, the Johnny Fontaine of Gaza...
| ... soon to be the Jimmy Hoffa of Gaza ... |
Howda it evah get this far?
Nothing would change, he said, until the major factions were disarmed, which was a huge task. Meanwhile, the infighting comes at huge cost. "We have a very good experience of self-destruction as Palestinians," he said. "And I think the kidnapping of Alan Johnston is one of these ways of self-destruction."
We're cursed, I tells ya! Cursed!!!
The feud between the Nofals, a Fatah family, and the Hadads, a Hamas family, began in January. Those days saw the worst of the fighting between Fatah, the secular movement which has dominated Palestinian politics for decades, and Hamas, its Islamist rival, which was elected into power last year.
Youze gotta have these things every coupla weeks. It gets rid of da bad blood...
| ... if you don't get gun sex every so often you'll explode ... |
I must go to Don Nofal for justice!
In the weeks that followed he looked for his car, until on March 13 he saw it parked in Zeitoon, his local neighborhood of Gaza City. He confronted the driver, who told him the car belonged to Hamas and the al-Qassam brigades. The confrontation quickly descended into shouting, then as more men arrived, some Nofal's friends and others Hamas members, there was shooting.
You dissin me!
No, you dissin me!
BLAM BLAM BLAM BLAM...
In the clash, Nofal's brother, Mahmoud, another Preventative Security recruit, was shot nine times. He survived but is now seriously ill in a hospital in Egypt.
Nine times, ya say? Sounds like they were trying to shoot off all his toes...
On the other side, one man was killed, Ala'a Hadad, 40, a member of the al-Qassam brigades who had taken Nofal's car. Ala'a was the son of the retired businessman Omar Hadad. He was shot dead by a single bullet that entered through his abdomen. His father still has his son's walkie-talkie, which is cracked by a bullet-hole.
Nice...ummmmmm...souvenir, pops.
Nofal denied he was the killer. In his report, he wrote: "I swear by God the person who killed Ala'a Hadad was not there... I ask all those striving for the Palestinian factions to find out the truth for the people and to spare more blood as God is my witness."
Ah, quit whining, Fredo. Act like a man! ACT LIKE A MAN!
But last Friday, Nofal was kidnapped again, this time by the Hadad family. He was beaten and shot dozens of times. In the early evening his mutilated body was dumped in the street in Zeitoon.
Poor Nofal. He never could get a break. Ya hadda push it, didn't ya, kid...
The Nofal family live in a small, barely decorated house in the neighborhood. An orange cloth hangs just inside the front gate and posters of Arafa are pinned to the wall. They show a smiling young man in a white shirt, with a trimmed beard.
He was a quiet boy. He was turning his life around...
"What are they fighting about?" said the dead man's sister-in-law, Iman Nofal, 37. "When there are Israeli incursions the Palestinian factions are united. When there are none, they fight each other. They are trying to divide the families against themselves."
The Good Old Days, right, Iman. Killin Jews instead of each other?
"This is enough blood now," said his mother, Muyassa Nofal, 55.
...for this week anyways.
A few streets away is the home of the Hadad family, Hamas supporters who live in a well-appointed apartment in a new tower block. Photographs of their dead son, Ala'a, are pasted on the walls outside. Omar Hadad, 70, sat quietly in an armchair as he told the story of the murder of his son. The fault, he said, lay entirely with Arafa Nofal. "He was the killer, we know this," he said.
It broke my heart, but...he had to go.
He talked about the wider crisis in Gaza and said he believed there was little chance of a broader reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah and every chance that the situation would worsen."The solution is to stop relying on politicians from Hamas or Fatah, but to have professionals, technocrats to control the politics and economics," he said.
It also might help if Omar and his friends stops getting these urges to kill people. But that's asking a lot...
A few minutes later he began to cry."I swear I didn't want to kill Arafa but we had to because he killed my son. We had to kill him," he said.
Because this... is the business... we've chosen!