Report from Gaza: Palestinians in their own words:
One of his neighbors weighs in: Many people are now against Hamas but that won't change anything," he says. Because anyone who stands up to them is killed. Since they took power Hamas has used brutal force against any dissenters in the Gaza Strip. There were news agency reports that during the war they allegedly executed suspected collaborators with Israel. The reign of terror
will go on for some time, says the neighbor who doesn't want to give his name. There will never be a rebellion against Hamas. It would be suicide.
Mohammed Sadala's rage is aimed at the man, whose remains he found in his bedroom: a Hamas fighter. He and a comrade broke into the home which had long stood empty after the Sadala family fled. The Hamas men shot at the approaching Israelis from the balcony. The soldiers fired back, killing the militants and destroying the house of the 10-strong family in the process.
In the bedroom lay the corpses: one had bled to death, the other was hit by a tank shell.
Others swallow their anger. Hail's house is just a few streets away and only suffered light damage. There are a few bullet holes in the living room walls and all of the window panes are broken. Hail also found out after the cease-fire that the militants had used his house as a base for their operations. The door to his house stood open and there were electric cables lying in the hallway. When Hail followed them they led to his neighbor's house which it seems Hamas had mined.
As Hail, in his mid-30s, sat on his porch and thought about what to do a man came by: He was from Hamas and had left something in Hail's home. He let him in and the man then emerged with a bullet proof vest, a rocket launcher and an ammunitions belt. An hour later a fighter with Islamic Jihad called to the door, then disappeared onto the roof and reappeared with a box of ammunition. They abused civilians' homes for their own purposes. That is not right," Hail says with disgust while trying to remain polite.
http://www.spiegel.de/...
So Hamas used civilian homes for fighting. Dead Hamas militants were found inside when a family returned. Other homes were used as a military base and mined. This dovetails perfectly with the report that Hamas turned a farm into a military base.
And one Palestinian is quoted as saying, "Anyone who stands up to Hamas is killed." He calls Hamas rule, "A reign of terror."
Short diary but I thought the spiegel article warranted wider viewing.
moon