|
Wednesday Sept. 26, 2012 3:09 PM (EST+7)
Boys' death ignites rare anti-Hamas protests in Gaza
|
|
|
GAZA, Sept 26 (Nidal al-Mughrabi/Reuters) - At least 500 protesters in the Gaza Strip have called for the overthrow of the ruling Islamist Hamas group in a rare demonstration triggered by the death of a three-year-old boy in a fire during a power outage.
|
|
|
 |
 Palestinian workers try to fix a transformer that broke down during a surge in power use, following an extended blackout in Gaza City, Feb. 6 2008.(AP/Hatem Moussa, File)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Multimedia
 al-Jazeera Int: Dining with Terrorists, Fighting Occupation Pt. 1
March 8, 2009 9:03 AM (EST+7)
al-Jazeera Int: Dining with Terrorists, Fighting Occupation Pt. 2.
March 8, 2009 9:34 AM (EST+7)
Al-Jazeera Int: Town sees rare Palestinian unity
Jan. 20, 2010 9:26 AM (EST+7)
|
 Documents
 Fateh and Hamas Reconciliation Agreement, May 4 2011
Gisha - Who Turned out the Lights in Gaza?
Hamas Covenant (1988)
|
Publications
An Issue and an Audience: A Series of Seminars
Analysis of Palestinian Public Opinion on Politics: Political Beliefs and Preferences of People Who Trust Fatah and People Who Trust Leftist Factions
Analysis of Palestinian Public Opinion on Politics: Popular Trust and Distrust in Palestinian Politicians and Factions
|
Background
Cairo talks
Civil society (Palestinian)
Egypt wall
|
Resources
"After Annapolis," Bitterlemons Dec. 3, 2007
“Hamas gains in teachers union election,” Jerusalem Post
“Suicide and Other Bombing Attacks in Israel Since the Declaration of Principles (Sept 1993),” Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs
|
|
|
|
Protesters in the Bureij refugee camp, where the boy's family live, called for Hamas to be toppled and chanted "The people want to down the regime" late on Tuesday night, echoing slogans adopted in Arab revolutions in neighboring countries. The police swiftly dispersed the crowd.
Demonstrators took to the streets as the boy's body was being moved to a hospital, saying they were protesting against the incompetent way Hamas ruled Gaza. Anger spilled over after the boy died and his infant sister suffered critical burns when a candle lit amid a power outage burnt their house down.
Anti-Hamas protests in Gaza, where power failures have left households with just six hours of electricity a day since February, are extremely rare. Three children were killed earlier in the year by similar fires during an outage.
Hamas blames the electricity shortages on Egypt which it says is restricting the flow of fuel, and on Israel, which imposed a blockade on the coastal enclave in 2007 when Hamas seized control from the Western-backed Palestinian Fatah party.
MORE PROTESTS?
The dead boy's father called for more protests, saying he hoped a healing of internal Palestinian political rifts could ease the Strip's problems.
"I call on people to take to the streets and not to fear being clubbed by policemen," Abdel-Fattah Al-Baghdadi, 23, told Reuters.
"I hold both the governments in Gaza and in the West Bank responsible for what happened to us," he said.
Earning 1,250 shekels ($318) a month from working as a civil guard at the Religious Affairs Ministry, he said he had been using candles to light his house during blackouts because he could not afford to buy a generator or fuel.
"Besides my wife and two children, I had to spend money to help my bigger family," he said.
Taher Al-Nono, a spokesman for the Hamas government in Gaza, said the death of Baghdadi's son was a message to Egypt that it had to speed up its promised efforts to help solve the power crisis in Gaza.
"The international community's silence is an accomplice in the crime of blockading Gaza," Nono said in a statement.
Hamas is sensitive to criticism and has looked on with concern as protests in the Israeli-controlled West Bank against high prices have spread in the past few weeks, fearing they may spill over into its own territory.
Hamas has banned protests, including any demonstrations calling for an end to divisions between it and Fatah.
On Tuesday, police in Gaza dispersed what they said was an unlicensed rally organized by dozens of women calling for unity between Gaza and the West Bank.
|
|
|
 |
Log in
Add comment
Rules
( 0 )
|
|
|
|
logindive
|
All comments on blogs are pre-moderated. This means
comments are read before publication to check there
is no obvious breach of the Rules below. Users who
repeatedly break the rules will be blocked from
posting on JMCC.org.
If you become aware of content that breaches these
Rules, please report the abuse using the link on
each blog post.
|
| Rules |
|
Any posting of any message or content by users to
JMCC.org is subject to the following rules.
|
1. Postings must not:
|
a) contain material that is defamatory, abusive,
threatening, obscene, racially or sexually
offensive, in breach of copyright, trademarks or
other intellectual property rights, sexually
explicit or homophobic or in breach of privacy or
confidentiality or which encourages or condones any
illegal or criminal activity or is in any way
unlawful or inappropriate; |
|
b) contain swearing or inappropriate user names; |
|
c) constitute advertising or virus propagation,
provide weblinks that amount to advertising or which
are inappropriate or constitute spamming or
flooding; |
|
d) impersonate any person or entity; |
|
e) solicit or exchange personal information - for
example do not give out your email address, home
address, work place or telephone number or arrange
to meet anyone; |
|
f) be misleading or inaccurate or portray anyone in
a false light; or |
|
g) contain material that is copied or that you do
not own. |
2. You are responsible for liability and any legal
action arising from your posting. You indemnify us
against all losses, claims, damages and expenses
(including the cost of defending or settling any
claim or damages), whether foreseeable or
unforeseeable, suffered or incurred directly or
indirectly arising from your posting.
3. Please be aware that it is possible to trace
internet activity to a specific computer.
4. By submitting a posting to JMCC.org, you grant us
a worldwide royalty free license to use your content
in perpetuity and at our discretion in any media now
known or hereafter developed and you now give us all
waivers (including waivers of moral rights) and
consents to do so.
5. We may refuse to publish and/or remove any
content at any time for any reason at our sole
discretion. If you breach these Rules we may also
prohibit you from submitting further postings to
JMCC.org.
6. We are not responsible or liable for any posting
or for its accuracy.
|
|
|
|
|
Palestinian workers try to fix a transformer that broke down during a surge in power use, following an extended blackout in Gaza City, Feb. 6 2008.(AP/Hatem Moussa, File)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
To subscribe to free newsletter submit your email |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|