Here are a few quick observations from a day’s reporting in Gaza City. Hamas has surrounded the Dagmush neighborhood with checkpoints and is checking IDs of everyone going in and out. Anyone with the last name Dagmush gets arrested. The Hamas Executive Force gunmen manning the checkpoints are talking tough and ready to rumble. “We can take these guys down in one hour,” one told us. There have been very scattered reports of occasional clashes and there is a sense that the noose is tightening and Hamas may act at any moment. While I tend to think they will not rush any raid, it is also clear they cannot now back down.
I met with Ismail Haniya along with about ten other journalists for a roundtable discussion in his Cabinet meeting room in Gaza City’s beach camp. He had little new to say, but vowed that all options were on the table for rescuing Johnston and said Hamas’ patience would eventually run out. Three months of both public and private negotiations had failed, he proclaimed.
There are some shortages in Gaza. Two fixers I work with there both called me up on my way down and asked me to bring in cartons of Lucky Strike cigarettes for them because stores in Gaza had run dry.
Salaries are due to be paid tomorrow and a lot of people are waiting to see how that plays out. Armoured cars filled with cash were allowed into the Strip yesterday to make sure banks had adequate supplies of currency to meet the expected demand for hard currency withdrawals. Haniya denounced the decision by the Fayad government in Ramallah to withhold salaries from about 19,000 public servants who have remained loyal to Hamas. Haniya reiterated his call for negotiations with Fatah, but said “Hamas’ love must be reciprocated,” which drew chuckles from those present.
Haniya wore a grey check suit, white shirt open at the neck, no tie, and a Palestinian flag pinned to his lapel. Similarly, at the Suraya police headquarters in Gaza City two young Hamasniks were busy threading dozens of Palestinian flags onto wooden rods before hanging them along the roof of the building. They readily admitted that Hamas is eager to replace the Islamist movement’s green flags with Palestinian flags to bolster claims they represent and serve all the Palestinian people.
3 responses so far ↓
1 Fuchs auf der Heid // Jul 4, 2007 at 3:04 am
German radio and AP report: Kidnapped British reporter Alan Johnston has been released. “I`m OK, really, I`m OK”. Congratulations!
2 Fuchs auf der Heid // Jul 4, 2007 at 3:07 am
via AP, Haaretz: Alan Johnston, the BBC journalist held hostage in the Gaza Strip since March, was handed over by his Islamist captors to Hamas officials on Wednesday. The 45-year-old Briton was taken into the care of officials from the Hamas movement, which seized full control of Gaza three weeks ago. “I was released a couple of hours ago. It was an appalling experience as you can imagine. Occasionally quite terrifying… Now it really is over,” Johnston told BBC News from the home of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh. The journalist added: “I am hugely grateful to the people who worked [for the release]. I think I am OK. to keep my mind in the right place was a constant battle.” Johnston, the only Western correspondent working full-time in the Strip, went missing on March 12. “I dreamt many times of being free and always woke up back in that room … It’s an amazing thing to be free,” he said, sounding composed though somewhat tired. Johnston said he had followed events on a radio during most of his time as a hostage and thanked people round the world, as well as his colleagues at the British public broadcaster, for their support and efforts to help secure his release. He said he had spoken briefly to his family in Scotland.
3 Randy FX // Jul 8, 2007 at 2:21 am
Hamas releasing the BBC reporter is doing what is best for Hamas. Reporters were afraid to go to Gaza because they would be kidnapped. So now reporters know that if a gang kidnaps them in Gaza, Hamas will try to get them released in about 16 weeks.
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