NUSEIRAT REFUGEE CAMP, Gaza Strip - The execution-style killing this week of a senior Palestinian police chief has touched off a violent struggle between the ruling Palestinian Authority and the radical militant group Hamas for control of Gaza.
Street clashes have left four protesters dead. Yesterday, Hamas appeared to have the upper hand. The local blue-uniformed police were nowhere to be seen. Worried about being attacked, they had gone underground.
Street corners throughout Gaza were manned by green-vested members of the state police force, roughly equivalent to the National Guard, dressed in camouflaged flak jackets and cradling assault weapons. Hamas and Palestinian leaders met yesterday, but failed to resolve the conflict.
"Who is the real authority, the Palestinian National Authority or Hamas?" Gaza City's police chief, Brig. Gen. Mahmoud Asfour, asked afterward. "We have to try and reach an understanding with Hamas to avoid further bloodshed."
The confrontation represents a serious challenge to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, and demonstrates the growing influence of Hamas among the Gaza Strip's overcrowded and impoverished population.
It also threatens to dissolve Palestinian unity as the Israeli army threatens new offensives in the Gaza Strip and retains its hold on the West Bank, where it has occupied most Palestinian cities throughout the summer and into the fall.
The two sides were in a stalemate yesterday. The Hamas member who killed the police chief refused to surrender, and Palestinian police vowed to use force to arrest him.
"There is only one authority," Nabil Shaath, one of Arafat's top Cabinet ministers, told Voice of Palestine Radio. "We will continue to pursue the murderers until they are arrested and put on trial in order to uphold the rule of law."
The police colonel, Rajeh Abu Lehiya, 47, who commanded the riot squad, was ambushed Monday morning on his way to work in Gaza City. The killers, dressed as Palestinian police, stopped his car at a fake checkpoint, shot him 10 times in the head and chest, and set his body on fire.
Lehiya and his officers had opened fire a year ago on a crowd demonstrating in support of Osama bin Laden outside Islamic University in Gaza. Three students, including Yousef Akel, 20, were killed.
Akel's older brother, Emad, 26, a member of Hamas' military wing, shot Lehiya to avenge the death, his family said. He was following tradition in a society where clan loyalty trumps civil law and disputes can linger for generations.
"We gave it a year and no one was held accountable," Aisheh Akel, 52, said yesterday inside her home at the Nuseirat camp. "My son got our revenge. This police chief was a bad person. He wasn't liked by his own people. He was hated by everyone."
She said that if her son hadn't killed Lehiya, "someone else would have." She said Emad had returned to the camp's market after the shooting and told her, "I took my revenge for my brother," then he disappeared.
Hamas leaders have tried to play down the dispute as a family feud that has nothing to do with their organization, which has been responsible for most of the suicide bombings in Israel over the past two years.
"This is not our problem," said Ismail Abu Shanab, one of Hamas' founders. "We are doing our best to calm the situation, but Emad is among his family and his supporters. We can advise him, but he thinks what he did is right. He practiced the justice that was lost by the Palestinian Authority."
But it is Hamas members who are hiding Emad Akel, and it is Hamas that has sent armed guards to the Nuseirat refugee camp to prevent a police raid.
Arresting Akel and his accomplices is the job of General Asfour, who polices the Gaza Strip, crowded with 1.2 million Palestinians, and represents the Palestinian Authority.
Hamas, one of the most radical of the many Palestinian militant groups, objects vehemently to any negotiations with Israel. Unlike Arafat's Palestinian Authority, Hamas is not willing to join in a two-state solution with Israel.
Over the past several months, Hamas has thwarted numerous attempts by Palestinian officials to stop the suicide bombing campaign and enter into a cease-fire with Israel. It calls any Palestinian who seeks a truce a traitor.
Hamas has a fervent following, especially in the Gaza Strip, which is isolated from the West Bank and hemmed in by a fence. Arafat, virtually imprisoned by the Israeli army in Ramallah, hasn't been to Gaza in nearly a year, and his influence here is clearly waning.
Palestinian police have jailed Hamas leaders in the past, when the organization was far weaker. More recently, Arafat, who routinely condemns Hamas bombings, has been unable or unwilling to accede to Israeli demands that his police force crush Hamas.
On Tuesday, Arafat ordered 3,000 police officers to enter the Nuseirat camp, packed with 60,000 residents, but only 400 showed up. Fearing an ambush, none tried to get by the mounds of dirt guarding the roads and they left without confronting any Hamas members.
As Hamas grows in strength, a confrontation with Arafat seems inevitable. This week, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon expressed hope that the long-awaited showdown had arrived.
"This is only a beginning," said Sharon's spokesman, Raanan Gissin. "It may turn either way."
Hamas has exerted its power before, and Palestinian police have tried to avoid confrontation, reluctant to trigger a civil war.
Arafat's police in Gaza have failed repeatedly to put Hamas' spiritual leader, Sheik Ahmed Yassin, under house arrest, and demonstrators have twice in recent months fought off officers trying to arrest Hamas co-founder Abdel Aziz Rantisi.
Gaza's streets were quiet yesterday. Workers swept away debris from the previous day's protests, and people went about their daily business. But the tension had not abated.
A tentative truce had been put in place Tuesday afternoon. Hamas agreed to end public demonstrations, and the police agreed not to enter the Nuseirat refugee camp or other Hamas strongholds. But hours after that handshake agreement, mourners marching in a funeral for one of the slain protesters threw grenades at police, demolished a police station and overturned police cars.
Emad Akel's mother lives on street near the camp's edge. She ushered a reporter into her living room yesterday, where she showed posters of her dead son and the others killed last year. Another of her sons was shot dead by Israeli soldiers in 1989. Still another lost an eye in clashes.
Akel said she initially was against killing the police chief.
"I told my sons to forget about it, it's not our way," she said. "But no one from the Palestinian Authority offered us condolences. My son was very angry."
Akel said the chief's killing has no bearing on the Palestinian struggle against Israel. But the conflicting graffiti messages on walls outside her home demonstrate that this family feud has taken on a much larger meaning.
Many Palestinians have lamented that the police chief was killed just hours after the Israeli army invaded a Gaza refugee camp and killed 16 Palestinians, diverting attention from what they termed an "Israeli massacre."
"We will not give Israel a chance," the scrawled statement said. "We should continue with national unity."
Next to that, however, someone wrote: "Congratulations to Akel for what you have done. You have implemented God's will. Sleep well. Your brother's blood was not wasted."