Conflict Blotter

I’m back in Gaza for a couple of days and the story here is law and order under Hamas. Gazans of all political stripes seem to be enjoying a sort of blissful honeymoon with the new regime here. Families are sitting in cafes and wandering the streets until well past dark. Everybody is talking about how much safer they feel now. One of my fixers – no Hamas fan – called gleefully at 10 p.m. last night to say he was with his wife and his little girl on the beach in Rafah. We were sitting around on the packed sea front patio of Gaza City’s Al Deera Hotel and everybody, Gazan and foreigner alike, sort of laughed at how absurd that would have been a few weeks ago.

Restoring order to Gaza is Hamas’ one big chance to score a tangible accomplishment for Palestinians and prove to the people that they, rather than their Fatah rivals, are best suited to rule.

On Thursday I was interviewing a Gaza City police captain, newly promoted now that most of the old leadership has fled to Ramallah. Of the 9,000 member police force only about 600 have returned to work. They seem to be either Hamas sympathizers, Hamas members, or simply police officers who doing their jobs was the right thing to do. Another 400 members of Hamas’ Executive Force have joined the police ranks and a number of Qassam militants are also on loan.

They are brash, cocky and gung ho to show Palestinians that a new day has dawned in Gaza. The captain boasted they had already nabbed 70 thieves and drug dealers. Of course, about 600 prisoners escaped during the Hamas-Fatah fighting two weeks ago. The captain brought out a small bag of white powder he said was seized cocaine and a small nickel bag of marijuana. He said they had confiscated it while raiding a dealer’s home.

At one point in the interview a subordinate came in and handed the captain a cel phone. He listened calmly and then erupted.

“We are the police. The people don’t threaten us. We make the threats around here,” he shouted, before slamming the Nokia against the wall.

They had arrested somebody a few days earlier for stealing a $400 welding machine. Now the thief’s cousin was calling the captain and warning him he’d come down with his armed clansman and free him by force if he wasn’t released.

The captain wasn’t having it. This was the way things had worked under Fatah, when crime mafias had had their run of things while the cowed police force drank tea in their bases. He barked orders and his crime fighters scampered into action, clicking magazines into AK47s and piling into police jeeps, pickup trucks and a white minivan with no side door. We piled in with them.

The six vehicle convoy tore through the streets sirens blaring and tires screeching toward the Shejaia neighborhood east of Gaza City. “Move to the right,” they yelled through a megaphone at dawdling traffic. They piled out of their van at the home of the 20 year old kid who had threatened them. They ran down an alley and charged into his house.

“This like what a gang would do,” said a neighbor of the SWAT team’s brutish tactics. “This is not a civilized police procedure. These are not the people who are going to build a civilized country.”

The target wasn’t at home, but his father assured the police officers he’d bring his son to the station within the hour. True to his word, father and son showed up to the station 45 minutes later.

The only problem is that there are no courts, legal procedures or due process of any kind in Gaza at the moment. The judges and prosecutors are still refusing to return to work to serve their Hamas masters. Jail sentences are handed down by police decree.