Battle for Gaza June 2007

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Battle for Gaza
Map of the Gaza Strip with the main places
Map of the Gaza Strip with the main places
date June 12th to June 15th 2007
place mostly in the Gaza Strip
output Displacement of the Fatah armed forces from the Gaza Strip
Parties to the conflict
losses

15th

105

41 civilians (including 11 women and 7 children), 2 UNRWA helpers

The battle for Gaza in June 2007 was a series of civil war-like skirmishes between militias of the warring Palestinian movements Hamas and Fatah and the Fatah-controlled security forces of the Palestinian Authority . The conflict concentrated on the period between June 12 and 15, 2007. In the course of the fighting, the Hamas militias gained the upper hand militarily over the Gaza Strip , which is part of the Palestinian autonomous territories.

As in the past, the long-simmering conflict between the two parties was accompanied by calls for an immediate ceasefire from both sides at the start of the fighting. There was no official order for the fighting either from one side or the other. Only later did the Palestinian President and Fatah boss Mahmoud Abbas call for military resistance. Hamas's political leadership around Ismail Haniyya did not comment on the takeover of the Gaza Strip by its militias during the armed conflict.

In the course of the fighting, many Fatah fighters fled to Egypt or to the West Bank, which is largely controlled by Fatah . The takeover of the Gaza Strip by Hamas was largely interpreted and condemned internationally as a coup . The situation led to the official dissolution of the incapable government of national unity , in which Hamas and Fatah had formed a kind of grand coalition.

background

The prehistory of the fighting in the Gaza Strip lies not only in the conflict between the competing Islamist Hamas and socialist-secular Fatah ideologies, but also in a non-functioning state apparatus, its lack of a monopoly on the use of force and various other ailing institutions. There are multiple reasons for that. Above all after the death of Yasser Arafat , who ruled authoritarian for a long time , the collapse of the “one-party state” under Fatah (as the strongest faction of the PLO ) and the withdrawal of the Israeli military stationed there for a long time , a power vacuum emerged that initially had none the political parties could gain the upper hand.

The increasing inability of the autonomous authority to act was also accelerated by the continuing financial and economic emergency. This was due to external reasons such as economic embargoes from the neighboring country and the most important employer, Israel , as well as the boycott of the Hamas government by the main financiers of the Palestinian Authority (PNA), the EU and the USA , but also internal reasons such as a poorly developed political culture and a network from corruption and nepotism.

The weakness of the autonomy authority played into the hands of locally operating family clans and warlords , who formally supported one of the two political groups Hamas or Fatah, but who de facto represented their own regional interests. The continuing hardship among the civilian population also played into the hands of religious leaders and Islamist extremists who were ideologically closely linked to and supported by countries such as Iran and Syria . The increasingly ambivalent behavior of the two largest political movements, Fatah and Hamas, also contributed to a rapid loss of public order.

Militant groups such as the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, which are close to Fatah, or the Hamas-affiliated Qassam Brigades, acted largely autonomously or at least not on the official mandate of the political leaderships. This was particularly evident in regular rocket and mortar attacks on Israeli territory, which contributed significantly to the international isolation of the Gaza Strip.

escalation

On June 10, Hamas militants arrested several Fatah members and threw one of them, Muhammad Sweirki, an officer in the Palestinian Presidential Guard , from the roof of a 15-story building in Gaza City . In retaliation, Fatah militants attacked the Great Mosque and killed its imam Muhammad al-Rifati. They also opened fire on the home of Prime Minister Ismail Haniyya, who, however, was not at home. In addition, a Hamas fighter was thrown from the roof of a twelve-story building and killed in the process.

On June 11, the residences of Mahmoud Abbas , the leader of al-Fatah and at the same time President of the Palestinian Authority and Prime Minister Ismail Haniya, were attacked with machine gun fire, RPGs and mortar shells.

Course of the fighting

Over 200 Hamas fighters attacked Fatah headquarters in the northern Gaza Strip on Tuesday June 12 with mortars, RPGs and machine guns . On Wednesday June 13, Hamas officials issued an ultimatum to the Fatah militias in the Gaza Strip. In Beit Hanun , further battles took place between the two organizations over the high-rise buildings there, which offered the best positions for snipers. By then, the Hamas fighters had succeeded in driving members of al-Fatah out of the northern Gaza Strip and (according to Hamas) gaining control over large areas of the southern Gaza Strip. In Gaza City and Chan Yunis , protest demonstrations by innocent civilians calling for a ceasefire were broken up by Hamas militias with gunfire. A 16-year-old protester was killed and 15 others injured.

In addition, the house of the late PLO leader Yasser Arafat , which has not been inhabited since 2001, was looted. His personal documents, his Nobel Peace Prize medal and his widow's belongings were stolen in the course of the looting, although Khalid Maschal had promised to prevent an attack on Arafat's former residence. The homes of Mohammed Dahlan and Intisar al-Wasir ( Umm Jihad ), the widow of the PLO fighter Chalil al-Wazir (Abu Jihad), who was killed by the Israeli Air Force in Tunis in 1988 , were also looted .

On June 14, Hamas also took control of the city ​​of Rafah, south of the strip near the only border crossing into Egypt . The border crossing is jointly controlled by Israeli, Palestinian and European security forces ( EU BAM ). For security reasons, EU staff had previously been relocated to Ashkelon and the border crossing had been closed. Hamas troops also took the presidential palace, and on the night of June 15 the last Fatah-controlled positions in the southern Gaza Strip also fell.

The Hamas fighters captured weapons, ammunition and armored vehicles that Fatah units had received from Jordan and Egypt.

consequences

On June 14, Mahmoud Abbas deposed Ismail Haniyya as prime minister and dissolved the cabinet of national unity that was only appointed in March . He then declared a state of emergency and appointed the previous finance minister, Salam Fayyad, as the new head of government, who is to lead the Palestinian government until new elections are held. Hamas, in turn, declares Abbas' move illegal; Ismail Haniyya will continue to run the official business and rule the Gaza Strip.

On June 17, 2007, the emergency government was sworn in. Late in the evening of June 16, 2007, President Abbas issued a decree that would allow him to take the swearing-in ceremony without the approval of parliament, in which Hamas has a majority. Since Prime Minister Haniyya does not recognize his impeachment and has announced in a radio address that his cabinet will continue to work without declaring a state of its own in the Gaza Strip, a de facto division of the Palestinian Autonomous Areas has nevertheless emerged . The Gaza Strip remained under the control of Ismail Haniyya, while the West Bank has since been ruled under the presidency of Mahmoud Abbas and the newly appointed emergency government of Salam Fayyad. Abbas adviser Jasser Abed Rabbo named Iran as responsible for the Hamas “coup” against the Palestinian government in the Gaza Strip.

Internationally, the majority of the states involved sided with Palestinian President Abbas. Both the EU , Israel , the United States and the Arab League condemned the violence and support the formation of a new government without Hamas.

The Egyptian President Husni Mubarak called the events in Gaza a coup d'état . In 2007 the Egyptian government feared that Gaza would develop into an Iranian outpost in the region and that the leadership of the Gaza Strip by Hamas would lead to a strengthening of the Muslim Brotherhood , which was close to it and which was the strongest opposition force in Egypt at the time.

War crimes

  • Human Rights Watch has accused both sides of "brutal violations of the most fundamental principles of humanity." Among other things, civilians were deliberately killed, political opponents and hostages were executed and prisoners thrown from high-rise buildings. Even completely bystanders were murdered. In addition, there was fighting in hospitals and shooting from vehicles marked with TV .
  • Fighting in and around hospitals was also condemned by the International Committee of the Red Cross . A hospital in Beit Hanoun was forced to close after violent attacks on patients and a man who was being operated on by doctors was shot dead.
  • The Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) also condemned the "gross violations of international martial law", including the torture and killing of prisoners and civilians, fighting in homes and public facilities, attacks on peaceful demonstrators and looting.

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The victims are not exclusively combatants, but also unarmed officials and other members of the respective faction
  2. ↑ PCHR Publishes “Black Days in the Absence of Justice: Report on Bloody Fighting in the Gaza Strip from 7 to 14 June 2007” ( Memento from September 20, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
  3. ↑ Tages-Anzeiger : “Abbas and Haniya demand the end of the fighting” , June 13, 2007
  4. ^ The Australian : "Deadly escalation in Fatah-Hamas feud" ( Memento June 11, 2007 in the Internet Archive ), June 12, 2007
  5. ↑ CNN : “Militants throw rivals off high-rise Gaza buildings,” June 12, 2007
  6. ↑ BBC News, "Hamas launches new Gaza attacks," June 12, 2007
  7. ↑ BBC News: Hamas battles for control of Gaza , June 13, 2007
  8. ↑ BBC News, "Gaza gun battles rage on unabated," June 13th
  9. ↑ Jerusalem Post : “Looters raid Arafat's home, steal his Nobel Peace Prize,” June 16, 2007
  10. ↑ CNN : "Hamas controls Gaza, says it will stay in power," June 14, 2007
  11. ↑ a b c FAZ : “Haniyah refuses to be released - Hamas conquers last Fatah bastion” , June 15, 2007
  12. ↑ BBC News: "New Palestinian cabinet sworn in," June 17, 2007
  13. ↑ BBC News: Israel praises Hamas-free cabinet , June 17, 2007
  14. ↑ Welt-Online : “Abbas consultant accuses Iran” June 19, 2007
  15. ↑ ORF : “EU wants to continue Gaza aid and support Abbas”  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , June 18, 2007@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / oe1.orf.at  
  16. ↑ The press "Israel and the USA Free Money for Abbas" ( Memento June 24, 2007 on WebCite ), June 19, 2007
  17. ↑ Tages-Anzeiger : “Arab League supports Abbas” , June 16, 2007
  18. ↑ Associated Press via Haaretz : “Mubarak calls Hamas' takeover of the Gaza Strip a 'coup'” ( Memento from October 1, 2007 in the Internet Archive ), June 22, 2007
  19. ↑ Human Rights Watch : "Gaza: Armed Palestinian Groups Commit Grave Crimes" , 13 June 2007
  20. ↑ ABC News : "Hospitals Offer No Safety in Gaza Strip," June 13, 2007
  21. ↑ PCHR Publishes “Black Days in the Absence of Justice: Report on Bloody Fighting in the Gaza Strip from 7 to 14 June 2007” ( Memento from September 20, 2008 in the Internet Archive )