World Bulletin
“It’s impossible for everybody from my area to flee. Where would they all go?” said Faris Aryan, a shopkeeper from the northern border town of Beit Lahiya.
Gaza’s Palestinians hunkered down in fear for their lives while Hamas fighters urged defiance after Israel sent forces into the densely populated territory on Thursday after 10 days of cross-border fire.
Residents largely abandoned the usually teeming streets after a fevered night of bombardment. Ships spitting machinegun fire drifted closer to the desert enclave’s Mediterranean shore, artillery shells lit the skyline orange every few seconds and buildings shook from the air attacks.
Small groups of drowsy men trudged to Friday prayers in Gaza City despite the frequent boom of Israeli artillery.
“We’re terrified. My whole family hears the bombs fall around us and we could be hit any time. We feel like there’s nothing we can do to protect ourselves,” said Yousef al-Hayek, 60, wearing a white robe and clasping prayer beads.
“Everything’s in God’s hands. The invasion was expected, but how it will end is not yet clear. We hope for a truce.”
Among the 23 Palestinians killed in the night darkness after Israeli announced ground operations to destroy underground tunnels used by militants were three young cousins – Mohammed, Mohammed and Ali Nutaiz, aged between 4 and 26.
They fled with their families from Israeli tank fire in an eastern border town, only to be killed when the house to which they fled was shelled, a relative told Reuters at their funeral.
Palestinian medics say 222 of the 260 Gazans killed in the hostilities have been civilians, including 40 children.
Hamas said it welcomed Israel’s ground thrust and looked forward to killing and capturing soldiers after many of its some 1,400 rockets so far were deflected by missile defences. Just one Israeli civilian has been killed, as well as one soldier in the incursion.
“Are you promising us what we are waiting for? Gaza is waiting for you to suffer bitter death,” Abu Ubeida, the masked and camouflaged spokesman of Hamas’s armed wing, the al-Qassam brigades, boasted last week.
“The world will see the skulls of your soldiers stepped on by the bare feet of our children. We will turn it into the promised hope of freedom dawning soon for our prisoners,” he said, referring to the fighters’ hope of abducting Israeli troops and exchanging them for Palestinian prisoners.
ISRAELI WARNINGS, HACKINGS
The Israeli military has warned Palestinians of impending strikes by telephoning residents of targeted houses, dropping disabled warning bombs on their roofs and strewing leaflets across endangered neighbourhoods.
It has repeatedly hacked Hamas’s al-Aqsa TV channel to broadcast the warnings, but the areas so far mentioned are home to several hundred thousand people. While around 30,000 have fled to temporary U.N. shelters, many insist they will stay put.
“It’s impossible for everybody from my area to flee. Where would they all go?” said Faris Aryan, a shopkeeper from the northern border town of Beit Lahiya.
“The shells were landing almost every second. I just go from the shop back home. We don’t know what is going on or what to expect. We fear things could get much worse.”
“This urban war, which the heroes of al-Qassam are directing…, is going on above and below the ground, and they’ve achieved great successes and the enemy has taken heavy losses!” an announcer on Hamas’s al-Aqsa radio intoned proudly.
“The people must realize all this, despite how they try to frustrate our morale and the psychological war this cowardly enemy is practicing.”
“GOD’S PUNISHMENT”
A punishing Israeli blockade on Gaza battered the economy and helped push unemployment to around 40 percent. Imports of building materials and fuel were severely curtailed and the people mostly barred from travelling.
The crisis deepened when Egypt’s military overthrew the Muslim Brotherhood a year ago and demolished hundreds of border smuggling tunnels that brought in weapons and other goods.
That has since deprived the Hamas government of revenue from taxes it levied on fuel, cigarettes and building materials that used to contribute two thirds of its budget for running Gaza, home to some 1.8 million people along a 40-km stretch of coast.
In 2014, the government budgeted for a deficit of fully $500 million on spending of $800 million, according to Gaza economist Maher al-Tabbaa. Early this year, Hamas cited the shortfall in paying public sector employees only half their salaries.
Hamas and Fatah signed a reconciliation accord in April, after which the authorities passed responsibility for public sector wages on to a unity cabinet of technocrats in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank. Most Gaza public employees did not receive any funds in months of bickering that followed.
Facing the Israel and Egyptian blockade, Hamas has been adapting its economic strategy for the long haul by investing in agriculture and trade to generate more local revenues, according to Gaza political analyst Hani Habib.
“The group has a keen economic mentality. They’re good merchants,” Habib said.
“I don’t think Hamas’s suffering is permanent. Its ability to bring in money gets limited at times, their methods may have to change. But they remain intact,” he added.
Officials of the group refuse to discuss their financing and insist the bulk of their resources comes from donations by individuals in Arab and Muslim countries rather than states.
While relations with governments may suffer setbacks, Palestinian grievances will always fire the imaginations of donors and ensure a steady flow of fund to their armed wing.
“Our funding comes from ordinary people’s pockets. People pay so that the occupation of Palestine ends, and people pay so that the shedding of Palestinian blood does not go unpunished,” a senior Hamas commander told Reuters several weeks ago.
“We are God’s punishment to the Zionist occupation.”