Gaza melts down

With Hamas and Fatah forces shooting at each other, Gaza stands on the edge of civil war. A report from the streets.

By Mitchell Prothero

Read more: Politics, News, Civil War, Hamas

May 24, 2006 | GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip -- I started calling it a civil war when the family of a slain bodyguard took over the lobby of my hotel -- one of the nicest seaside hotels in the world, let alone in a place like Gaza City -- and began firing at the Hamas gunmen across the street.

On Saturday, someone tried to blow up Tariq Abu Rajab, the head of Palestinian Military Intelligence. Rajab's bodyguard, Ali Abou al-Hassira, died when the elevator he and his boss, a senior member of Fatah and a longtime Hamas enemy, were entering suddenly exploded. Eleven other people were wounded. Somehow, someone was able to place a nice big bomb loaded with ball bearings in an elevator in the headquarters of Palestinian Military Intelligence. Nobody even tried to blame the Israelis this time. The street's verdict: This was Hamas all the way.

The badly wounded Rajab had to be evacuated to a hospital in Israel. And the Hassira family held the normal Gaza funeral, marching around with the body and firing AK-47s in the air. The newly installed Hamas security force wisely cleared the streets around the area to avoid a confrontation. Like many Fatah supporters, the al-Hassira clan hates Hamas, and they compared the new force in the streets to their archenemy.

"This is the result of occupation," Abu Muhammad al-Hassira yelled at me as the body entered the mosque. He waved his hands for emphasis. "First the Israelis and now we have Hamas!" and then he spit on the ground before entering the mosque to pray.

I was in my room filing pictures of Hassira's funeral when the gunshots began. The family lives near my hotel, and so when I heard the shooting, I wasn't concerned: I could tell it was just mourners firing into the air. Then out my window I saw all the local kids running for their lives and the unmistakable sound of AK-47s being fired from inside the building. This was a new wrinkle. I crept down the stairs with my cameras.

It was chaos. A 12-year-old boy was walking around aimlessly with a bullet hole in his neck. Blood was flying everywhere. The outdoor hallway that separates the restaurant and hotel had bullet casings skidding down it and the area was filled with Hassira family members either appealing for calm or shooting at Hamas gunmen, who had reappeared after the funeral across the street. And the Hamas gunmen were counterattacking and coming closer and closer to the hotel.

But I knew none of this at the time. People think journalists who cover conflicts just coolly drop into gun battles and figure them out as we go. We don't. We like to know in advance that Team A is over there and Team B is over here. There are some simple rules. Don't get between them, make sure whatever side you're covering it from knows you're there and is OK with your presence. Once you have all that set up then keep low, do your work and don't overstay your welcome. And make sure the side you're working isn't about to lose badly. If they do, run like hell.

But in this case, I wasn't a journalist. I was just some dude in a close-quarters automatic weapons gunfight and no idea. Bullets flying around, black-shirted gunmen counterattacking and pools of blood on the floor of my hotel lobby -- that's not journalism, it's getting shot at. So I bolted, dodging the still unexplained bullets, and had the situation explained to me later. Three wounded and the kid with the neck wound lived.

That wasn't even the closest call I had that day.

A few hours before, just after the bomb, I ran to the hospital. In the Middle East, after a major violent event you have to count the dead and wounded, since official statements tend to over- or understate things in the short term, depending on how it suits them. Only in the hospital or morgue can you find the truth.

A little background here: Palestinians are the easiest people in the world to cover as a journalist. They respect the work, know journalists take risks to tell their story, and, frankly, know that stories of their suffering under Israeli oppression are good P.R. But it's not just cynical and calculating; they're Arabs and that stuff about Arabs' respect for guests is very real and sincere.

Having said that, a lot of the goodwill toward the foreign journo dries up when it's Arabs fighting each other. Suddenly, you're not documenting a noble struggle against occupation, you're just some foreigner. And if you're in a hospital full of pissed-off Military Intelligence officials tending to their wounded, it's a disaster. As I tried to take pictures, I was suddenly surrounded by a mob of armed men grabbing at my cameras. Luckily, the son of a wounded official jumped into the fray and dragged me to a side room. Once he checked my digital images, he informed the angry crowd I had done nothing wrong and I was free to take pictures outside the hospital.

One frame later, I was chased off the hospital grounds by a half-dozen armed, screaming men. A local photographer -- one smart enough to not even take his cameras out of his car -- yanked me to safety.

"You know they'd kill me for saying this, but I miss the Israelis," one droll local journalist told me after we watched the men beat another photographer and destroy his gear. "Sure they occupied us, but there were fucking rules, man. 'Go here and we'll shoot you. Stand there and you're cool.' We could work. We could live. Now we have this shit."

Next page: A fool fires his gun in the air inside -- and the bullet hits someone in the head