The letter from the Palestinian Authority’s health ministry said Soad el-Dairy’s husband was urgently in need of drugs to treat a heart condition but the ministry could not help.
Dairy passed the letter to the man behind the desk, and after a few questions it was agreed that she would receive 100 shekels (£14).
There was no talk of politics, no mention of which side Dairy’s family might be on. But, by indirectly providing what the Palestinian government could not, Hamas added to its burgeoning support in Gaza.
”I have nine dependants, including my husband, and one-year-old twins,” Dairy said. ”The Palestinian Authority can’t help me, the UN can’t help me. But I know this society will. When I gave birth to the twins they helped me with 500 shekels.
”Most of the people in my street are dependent. The unemployed, the women with sick husbands or dead husbands. Most of the young are unemployed. Without this help we could not survive.”
Hamas — an acronym for the Islamic resistance movement that means ”zeal” in Arabic — has been responsible for more suicide bombings during the latest intifada than any other organisation.
There were reports yesterday that Hamas was finally edging closer to a ceasefire after weeks of negotiation, a move that could be pivotal to the implementation of the US-backed ”road map” to peace.
The Israelis, though, have linked the organisation to al-Qaida and have said they will settle for nothing less than its total destruction.
Last week in Jerusalem, the US secretary of state, Colin Powell, took a similar line. ”Despite whatever charitable or other social good these organisations may perform, as long as they have as an organisational culture a commitment to terror and violence and a desire to destroy the state of Israel, it is a problem we have to deal with in its entirety,” he said.
There is little doubt that at the core of support for Hamas — and its challenge to Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement — lies its power to inflict pain on Israel, much as many bitter Israelis back Ariel Sharon for his willingness to make Palestinians suffer.
But far from being an underground organisation hidden in the shadows, Hamas has sunk its roots deep into many aspects of Gaza society in a way that will make it hard to weed out.
The organisation has pursued a shrewd strategy to build on support for its war in Israel with religion and welfare — both in growing demand among an increasingly shattered population.
The bulk of the 1,2-million Palestinians caged behind security fences and Israeli machine-gun posts around Gaza are living in increasingly dire conditions. Unemployment has surged to around 70%, while average incomes have fallen to a fraction of their levels before the intifada. Malnutrition is on the rise.
Through welfare organisations and mosques, Hamas provides what the Palestinian Authority frequently does not – medical care, education, food, clothes and schoolbooks. Its kindergartens are popular.
”They give to everybody,” said Mokraam Sara, another woman waiting for help to buy medicine. ”They don’t distinguish. They don’t care if you are Fatah or Hamas. They come to our houses and ask if we know of any of the neighbours who also need help. They never steal the money.”
Hamas’s reputation for honesty is in stark contrast to the rampant and widely scorned corruption of the Palestinian Authority. And while Palestinian cabinet ministers have provided themselves with large homes and tailored suits, the Hamas leadership is seen to retain a simple lifestyle.
The US and Britain have demanded that the rest of the world blocks funds to Hamas because they say the money finances killing. In reality, most of the Saudi and Syrian funds pay for the social and religious activities that have bought what Hamas hopes will be long-term political support.
Ironically, it is EU and US money that helps pay for what is widely seen by people in Gaza as one of Hamas’s greatest services, the Il-Wafa hospital, to which it is closely tied.
The Islamic University is also dominated by Hamas, with several of the organisation’s leaders teaching there.
In March, the Israeli army assassinated one of the co-founders of Hamas, Ibrahim Makadme, who worked in the university’s clinical department. Thousands turned out for a memorial service in the university grounds and everyone but the chancellor and his officials stood to pledge loyalty to Hamas.
”People support Hamas for all sorts of reasons,” said one Hamas activist, Namer Amr, who won a reputation in Gaza for fearlessly confronting Israeli tanks during the first intifada. ”Some are Islamists, others see Hamas as the road to liberation from the Israelis. Some sympathise with the acts of jihad [the suicide bombings]. Some see it as a political organisation, some see it as a military organisation. That’s its strength.”
Its support has strengthened further in recent weeks amid popular anger at the perceived sellout of the intifada by the new Palestinian prime minister, Mahmoud Abbas, after he declared an end to the conflict without securing a halt to the occupation.
Israel may now seek Hamas’s destruction, but during the 1970s the Jewish state gave the fledgling resistance movement money and breathing space as it emerged from the Muslim Brotherhood. Israel thought it would provide a useful counter to Arafat’s secular Palestine Liberation Organisation, and even registered its political and social organisations.
But by the time Sheikh Ahmed Yassin seized control of Hamas at the beginning of the first intifada in 1987, the Israelis had come to regret their support and grown to fear the rise of Islamism.
Ultimately, Hamas knows it cannot maintain support solely through violence and that it will have to come to a political deal, despite the public line that it is committed to driving the Jews from the Jordan valley to the Mediterranean.
Last week, a military leader who gives his name as Abu Sabbah said Hamas could settle for an agreement with Israel based on the 1967 borders and would leave the ”next generation” to decide on a permanent agreement.
Many Palestinians who are sick of the killing could live with that. The question is whether Israel can live with Hamas. – Guardian Unlimited Â