The bomb only singed the wall of his home, but Fatah loyalist and former security heavyweight Suleiman Abu Mutleq says the message is crystal clear: Hamas wants a fight.
The one-time senior officer in the preventive security force, one of those services created by the late Yasser Arafat and made up of Fatah members, was heavily defeated by the Islamic Resistance Movement in last week’s election.
Abu Mutleq was rudely awakened from a peaceful night’s sleep on Wednesday by an explosion outside his front door in the central Gaza Strip.
”Three kilos of explosives, detonated by a mobile phone. It broke the door, shattered the windows.”
Around him, mope dozens of glum-looking men, some of them armed, most of them in civilian clothes.
Relatives, friends and political allies turned up to commiserate with the unfortunate Fatah candidate, swept aside like so many others by the tidal wave that accorded Hamas an absolute majority in the Palestinian Parliament.
”We are certain it was the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades [the armed wing of Hamas]. They’re in a hurry to take our place. They think anything’s allowed after their victory.”
In Gaza City, Hamas spokesperson Sami Abu Zuhri denied that the faction had anything to do with the blast, dismissing ”baseless accusations”.
Instead, he charged that an Ezzedine al-Qassam leader was subject to a failed assassination attempt on the same morning.
Yet to degenerate into serious clashes, friction between Fatah — all powerful in the Palestinian security forces — and Ezzedine al-Qassam has increased since the election, provoking fears that worse lies round the corner.
In a string of gunfights, assassination attempts and the seizure of government and party offices, so far only a handful of people have been wounded.
At work in the neighbouring town of Khan Yunis, the local preventive security chief said Abu Mutleq’s attack was not the first.
”The day before yesterday, they threw a grenade at my home in Rafah. My wife and children were inside,” saud Yussef Siam.
”Hamas looks at us like enemies … It’s true that in 1996 we made decisions against them, but we were on orders from Yasser Arafat.”
Under heavy international pressure, the late Palestinian Authority president at the time ordered hundreds of Hamas militants to be arrested.
One senior Hamas leader, Mahmud Zahar, likes to recall how he was released with several broken ribs after a testing interrogation.
Aware of the sensitive nature of the subject and strained relations, Hamas top brass have recently stepped up assurances that they would not go ahead with any purge of the Fatah-dominated security apparatus.
”We intend to reform these organisations, but nobody will lose his salary or his position … Anyone who serves will remain in his job,” Ismail Haniya told the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz in a recent interview.
Some officials suggest that Hamas be ultimately incorporated into a Palestinian army, although most believe any such merger and acquisition will figure low on the new government’s list of priorities.
The entire security apparatus, around 58 000 men, is directly answerable to Arafat’s successor and Fatah man, Mahmoud Abbas.
For Siam, the mechanics are clear. ”The future interior minister can propose things to the president, but he can refuse. We are answerable to him.”
Outside Abu Mutleq’s house in Abbassan, 33-year-old Ahmed Awadallah, pistol on hip, lets rip. ”Hamas can certainly appoint officers … but no one will obey their orders!” – AFP
