Fatah, which up until the last few years was the largest and oldest movement in the Gaza Strip, closed down its last branch among a population of more than one and a half million Palestinians on Saturday.
The Hamas raid
on the Hilles clan compound prompted the last Fatah men who survived the Hamas revolution to make their way into Israel,
and from there directly to Ramallah.
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| IDF: Soldiers rescued Fatah men under fire / Hanan Greenberg |
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Gaza brigade commander says forces waited till dark to complete rescue of fleeing Fatah members following surrender to Hamas; operation authorized by Barak at Abbas' request |
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Hamas made it clear that whoever attempts to undermine stability and peace will not be shown any mercy.
The Hilles clan was considered to be Fatah’s last stronghold in the Strip – the bastion that did not fall during Hamas’ revolution, mostly because of the hostility between the heads of the family and the Mohammad Dahlan camp. Now that the clan has been removed, there are no longer any military forces in the Strip that can undermine or significantly hurt the Hamas regime.
Today, we can say that the June 2007 revolution has been completed. From now on, Hamas is the only ruler in the Gaza Strip; there are no longer any rivals and certainly not any armed pockets of resistance that are visible.
Fatah, the movement that led the Palestinian revolution, has no authority vis-à-vis Salam Fayyad’s government in the West Bank and has been left without any presence in the Gaza Strip.
The return of Palestinian Authority members to Gaza seemed impossible even before Saturday’s events, and certainly so without Israeli intervention and Egyptian assistance.
Yet in the wake of Saturday’s events, the likelihood of the Palestinian Authority forces returning to the Strip is non-existent. Hamas has succeeded in what it characterizes as “clearing the last traitors from the Strip.”
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