Palestinians mark one year since the Islamist Hamas movement seized power in the Gaza Strip routing forces loyal to president Mahmoud Abbas and cleaving the occupied territories into rival entities. The Gaza Strip is sealed off fuel and electricity are in short supply and poverty is rising but Hamas shows no sign of weakness and is tightening its hold on the territory it seized a year ago

Adel Zaanoun
GAZA CITY - Agence France-Presse


A year after Hamas's seizure of power in the Gaza Strip the Palestinian enclave is sealed off and under siege fuel is in short supply and poverty is rampant.
But the Islamist movement remains defiant even as Israel prepares for a wide scale assault while still holding off on a major operation to give Egyptian-mediated truce efforts a chance.
A crippling Israeli-imposed embargo and almost daily military raids have failed to end Hamas attacks on the Jewish state 12 months after a deep rift with the moderate Palestinian government led the Islamists to set up their own administration in Gaza.
The days leading up to June 15 2007 saw atrocities of unprecedented ferocity including rival fighters thrown to their deaths from rooftops as Palestinian was pitted against Palestinian Islamist against secular before the green flag of Hamas flew victorious.
Already separated physically from each other by Israeli land the Palestinian territories were now sliced ideologically in two the government of president Mahmoud Abbas holding sway in the occupied West Bank only.
The deadly takeover also threw the future of any Middle East peace talks into doubt as Abbas could no longer say he spoke for all Palestinians.


Live in poverty:
Gaza's already stagnant economy has declined even further over the past year. The World Bank puts unemployment at more than 33 percent and nearly 40 percent of Gazans live in poverty with much of the population living on aid.
Ismail Haniya prime minister in the Hamas government sacked by the U.S.-backed Abbas after the Gaza seizure admits that the past 12 months have been difficult but he also hails what he calls "achievements and successes in the administrative field."
Considered a terror group by Israel the United States and Europe Hamas made it a priority to show it could govern the isolated and impoverished territory of 1.5 million residents.
Hamas had no experience of governance before it won democratic Palestinian legislative elections in January 2006 but its deputy information minister Hassan Abu Hashish says it now manages some 20000 civil servants.
It also runs the courts and has a police force of several thousand; it directs traffic collects taxes and imposes rationing because of fuel shortages caused by a year-old Israeli blockade.
In keeping with Islamic principles the black-clad police target those suspected of dealing drugs running booze or stealing cars and have virtually eliminated the public display of firearms once ubiquitous on Gaza's streets.
But Hamas is also accused by human rights groups of torturing jailed members of Abbas's Fatah movement.
"This year we have gone through a dangerous and unprecedented decline for human rights in the Gaza Strip and in the West Bank" said Hamdi Shakura deputy director of the Gaza-based Palestinian Center for Human Rights.
Abu Hashish insists that Hamas ended the "security chaos."
"We have not yet succeeded 100 percent but we have still achieved a lot despite the siege which is a challenge and spurs us on to even greater success" he said.
Israel turns screws:
As Hamas has tightened its grip so has Israel turned the screws imposing a blockade it claims is aimed at preventing militant attacks.
For months Israel's political and military leaders mulled a wider military blitz aimed at ousting the Hamas-run government.
On Wednesday the security cabinet decided to back Egyptian efforts to mediate a truce -- but also ordered the military to prepare for an offensive at short notice if necessary. Hamas called decision "not serious."
The Islamist movement trumpets what it calls steadfast resistance against Israel.
"Has Hamas given in? Has it been broken? Is the resistance destroyed? No -- because we stand firm and are determined to succeed" Abu Hashish said.
Hamas says it seized power in Gaza because Israel and the United States were using Fatah to undermine it.
"What happened in the Gaza Strip was something that was forced upon us and was not something we wanted after the US administration encouraged a coup despite the results of the legislative elections" Haniya told AFP.
"Nobody wanted these internal Palestinian divisions." In the face of continuing Jewish settlement stalled peace talks with Israel and his rule limited to the West Bank Abbas last week reached out to Hamas.Haniya responded by saying Hamas wanted national reconciliation and talks based on "neither victor nor vanquished."