http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1104394.html
Last update - 21:42 31/07/2009
Fatah activists don Islamic garb to flee Hamas-run Gaza
By The Associated Press
Tags: Gaza, Israel News, Fatah
Two dozen Fatah activists have sneaked out of Hamas-ruled Gaza in recent
days, including a woman who said she hitched a ride with farmers on a donkey
cart Friday to get past Hamas troops at a border checkpoint.
The getaways are the latest twist in a standoff between the Islamic
militant Hamas and Fatah, Palestinian rivals who rule Gaza and the West Bank,
respectively.
Fatah is holding its first convention in 20 years, starting Tuesday in
the West Bank town of Bethlehem. More than 1,500 delegates are to attend,
including 450 from Gaza.
However, Hamas says it will not allow the Gazans to leave until Fatah's
leader, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, releases some 900 Hamas detainees
he holds in the West Bank.
Rather than wait for an unlikely compromise, 27 Fatah delegates sneaked
out of Gaza in recent days, said Ghassan Jadallah, a Fatah organizer.
Travelers leaving Gaza have to present their documents at a Hamas
checkpoint about a mile away from Gaza's Erez crossing into Israel. Several
hundred yards closer to Erez, in an area off-limits to Hamas, another
checkpoint is staffed by Abbas loyalists who coordinate with Israeli border
officials by walkie talkie to direct the flow of passengers.
Israel and Egypt have virtually sealed Gaza's borders since a violent
Hamas takeover of the territory in June 2007. Few Gazans are permitted to leave
Gaza via Erez. They include medical patients with severe illnesses and business
people.
However, Israel has granted permits to nearly all the Fatah delegates
from Gaza, in a gesture of support for Abbas. Israel has also permitted scores
of Fatah delegates from the diaspora to enter the West Bank, said Palestinian
negotiator Saeb Erekat.
"It is really shameful that the big question mark is about delegates
coming from Gaza," he said.
Ghaliya Abu Sitte, 63, a Fatah delegate from the southern Gaza town of
Khan Younis, said she left home early Friday, put on the traditional Muslim
veil and long robe, took a taxi and got out a few hundred yards before the
Hamas checkpoint.
"I saw a donkey cart with two women who were collecting grass and wood,
she said in an interview later Friday at a West Bank hotel. I got on the cart.
I thought to myself, 'They won't notice me if I ride it.' I passed the Hamas
checkpoint. They didn't stop me or ask me."
Jadallah said others posed as medical patients on their way to treatment
in Israel, including a woman delegate who got in a wheelchair and was pushed by
three fellow Fatah activists. Others bypassed the Hamas checkpoint by walking
through orange groves.
Abu Sitte said her daughter-in-law, who accompanied her for the trip to
the border, was later detained by Hamas police. She and other Fatah delegates
said they would return to Gaza after the conference and were not afraid of
arrest.
Hamas government spokesman Taher Nunu said Fatah activists had been
warned against trying to sneak out. Anyone who defies these rules will face
unpleasant procedures, he said.
The two dominant Palestinian groups accuse each other of carrying out
political arrests that have crippled Egyptian efforts to broker a deal to
restore political unity and boost prospects for a resumption of peace-making
with Israel.
"It is doubtful that this dialogue can succeed and it is doubtful that
parties including Hamas would attend the coming round of dialogue in Cairo if
we don't close the file on political arrests," Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh said
in a Friday sermon at a mosque in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip by the
Egyptian border.
"We are not naive and we won't accept that dialogue takes place while
arrests continue," Haniyeh said.
The next round of reconciliation talks is scheduled for Aug. 25 in Cairo.
Egyptian mediators hope to get Hamas and Fatah to agree to some form of
power-sharing ahead of presidential and parliamentary elections in January.
Hamas seized control of Gaza in 2007 after routing Fatah forces. Fatah is
now dominant only in the West Bank. Haniyeh said his group would also boycott
the January elections if the issue of political arrests remained unresolved
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