The most terrifying and emblematic image of the Hamas-Fatah fighting in Gaza
Amnesty International’s recent report, Torn Apart by factional strife, about the violations of Palestinian human rights as a result of the fighting between Hamas and Fatah, contains a detailed account of the most terrifying and emblematic image from last June’s combat in Gaza. First, Hamas threw somebody from Fatah off the top of a high-rise apartment buiding in Gaza City. Then, Fatah reciprocated.
These high-rise apartments were built only after the start of the Oslo Process between Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization, which authorized the return of exiled Palestinian fighters from their camps in the deserts of Algeria, Libya, Tunisia, Sudan and elsewhere. These fighters were to serve as the security services of the Palestinian Authority that was set up by the Oslo Accords.
Here, from the Amnesty International report, is the “Testimony of F.H., a mechanic working with the Presidential Guard/Force 17:
‘On Sunday 10 June in the late morning, at about 10.30-11am, I and my colleague, Mohammed Swerki, who worked as a cook, were sent to deliver food to our colleagues who were in the Bacri Tower [a tall residential building in Gaza City]. However, we went to the wrong building by mistake; we went to the nearby Ghifari tower, where there was a Hamas group. When they opened the door downstairs we told them we were from Force 17 and they took us in and tied our hands and blindfolded us and took us upstairs; I don’t know if it was the top floor or one below. I don’t know if they were Qassam Brigades or Executive Force; they were dressed in black and masked. They asked me for names and telephone numbers of officers in Force 17 and which weapons they had and I said I didn’t know; I am a mechanic and my job was to repair cars and Mohammed was a cook; we were not involved in security issues. Then very quickly they left me and went to fight because they were being attacked by Force 17. Me and Mohammed were kept separate. At about 4 or 5 pm I heard screaming and the Hamas group came back to me and told me that Mohammed had fallen off the roof. They gave me water and allowed me to wash and pray. In the meantime some of my relatives had been alerted and there was intervention and someone came to get me and I was allowed to leave. Mohammed’s body was found in the street below the building; his hands were tied and he was blindfolded. He was 26 years old; he was married but did not yet have children’.
[n.b., when this writer was in Gaza last June, she heard that F.H. had been told, and believed, that he too was about to be thrown off the roof of the high-rise apartment building. He reportedly spent a long time in hospital, suffering from shock -- and was unable to speak for many days]
“As the news of Mohammed Swerki’s death spread it was rumoured that he had been thrown off the roof by Hamas gunmen, and masked Fatah gunmen quickly surrounded the home of Dr Ala’ al-Rifati, dean of the business faculty at the Islamic University in Gaza City and abducted his brother, Mohammed al-Rifati, a 35-year-old imam and reported Hamas supporter. He was later found dead, his body riddled with bullets, near the PA security compound in the Ansar area of Gaza City.
“Later that evening masked gunmen abducted Husam Abu Qinas when he was in a shared taxi returning home from work in Khan Yunis. They bundled him into a jeep reportedly belonging to the Presidential Guard/Force 17 and took him to the Mhanna tower (a tall residential building) in Gaza City and threw him off the roof, handcuffed. He had been shot in the head first, but it is not known whether he was still alive when he was thrown from the roof. Husam Abu Qinas, a 35-year-old tiler, married and expecting his first child, was religious but reportedly not a Hamas member. Both attacks were believed to have been carried out in revenge for the killing of Mohammed Swerki.”
The Amnesty International Report on the Hamas-Fatah fighting is published here.
Tags: Amnesty International, Fatah, Hamas