GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip -- The street is quiet. Shoes click through the courtyard; the metal door opens. Gunfire from clan fighting echoes from alleys near the sea, but that is someone else's battle. Karam Tahar has his own struggles as he hides in the shade of his living room, a man caught on the wrong side in a dangerous city.
There are thousands of Palestinians like him. The recent bloodshed that swept through the Gaza Strip left Tahar's political party, Fatah, defeated by Hamas, an Islamic militant group that now controls the battered territory and its 1.5 million inhabitants. Tahar was a Fatah military intelligence officer, and now he says he is a target, even though Hamas has invited him and other Fatah police and security officials to work for them.
"How can I work with somebody from Hamas who one week ago was shooting at me? Who killed my colleagues?" said Tahar, sitting in an overstuffed chair as his mother hovered, telling him not to say too much. "How can I live with somebody who still thinks I'm a collaborator with Israel and the Americans?"
His mother cut in: "We're afraid to go out."
Suspicion and recrimination permeate the Palestinian Authority. Last month's fighting, which left dozens dead, gave Fatah control of the West Bank and Hamas reign over Gaza. Men like Tahar find themselves in a tangle of divided loyalties and fear about what to do when the balance of power shifts in a land of guns and retribution.
The Fatah-run police and security forces that once kept order in Gaza have been replaced with Hamas volunteers carrying Kalashnikovs and wearing gray fatigues and black shirts. Men and boys in bright green vests direct traffic. There is calm but no sense of order.
Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, who was dismissed as prime minister by the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, has promised more than 20,000 Fatah civil servants that they can return to their posts without reprisal. Those who may want to take such a chance - about 300 have reportedly returned - are pressured by Fatah officials, who want them to abandon their jobs in a strategy to undermine Hamas' credibility.
"There is a threat to all Fatah ex-security people," said Tahar. "Before the coup, I did my duty to help my country. But now I spend most of my days sleeping."
He glimpsed a crack of light between the curtains. "Something taken by force can only be regained through force. We must politically tighten the noose around Hamas. Things are quiet now because families are in shock over their dead," he said.
"Hundreds were killed in the coup, and when the families wake they will start seeking revenge. I can live like this for two or three more months, but after that I would think about leaving the country."
His destination, he said, is not known, but many who have fled Gaza, which has been virtually locked down by Israel, have ended up in the West Bank.
In a neighborhood Fatah office, Hatim is happy to talk as long as he doesn't have to give his last name. Hatim was a Fatah security officer. Three of his friends were killed in the fighting between the groups.
Hatim said he believes Abbas will win back what Fatah has lost, but he is also troubled that Palestinians are fighting one another instead of staying unified against Israel. "We will not turn into some sort of militant gang," he said of Fatah. "But I know I will not leave Gaza under any circumstances, even if there's a threat against my life."
Jeffrey Fleishman writes for the Los Angeles Times.