Resistance is part of community: In Gaza, line between militants and population is thin

EIR AL-BALAH, Gaza STRIP — No place is safe.

That is what the relatives of Amin Zohdi Bashir and Tamer Rushdi Bashir said as they buried two cousins on Monday.

They were killed Monday morning in a thundering flash of light that left their car in flames and streaks of tomatoes smashed across the roadside. Relatives said the men were farmers who had nothing to do with the dozens of rockets that militants in Gaza lobbed toward Israel on Monday.

Israel said the men were terrorists who were deliberately targeted.

But the line between Hamas — the Islamist group that governs the Gaza Strip — and the general population in a densely packed territory of 1.7 million is hopelessly thin.

Over the weekend, Israel warned civilians, including journalists, to stay away from Hamas or risk being killed. Many Gazans said that is fundamentally impossible in a place where nearly everyone has a neighbor or a relative with links to Hamas, a group that Israel and the United States consider a terrorist organization.

Hamas is thoroughly embedded in society here. The organization has a powerful militant wing that is committed to fighting Israel. But its members also populate the police force, the customs office and government ministries. The group won legislative elections here in 2006, and it has hundreds of thousands of rank-and-file supporters. Hamas also runs an extensive network of social services, including schools and health clinics.

Buildings that Israel labels “terror sites” are what Hamas calls government infrastructure. Some of the young men who farm the fields by day take to the streets at night to fire rockets.

As ambulances roared into al-Shifa Hospital on Monday, Hamas police and Interior Ministry officials gathered in the parking lot and milled about the hallways. At funerals, the crowds are filled with Hamas backers, as well as members of other factions with armed wings, such as Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

“All the people are in Hamas, Fatah and the factions,” said Kamal al-Dalou, as his relatives were buried in Gaza City on Monday. These groups are the fabric of the Gaza Strip, he said. more

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