GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) – Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh pledged to live off “zeit wa zaatar” – olive oil and dried herbs – after leading the Islamic militant group to victory with a message of armed struggle and austerity during 2006 Palestinian elections.
But he has since left the impoverished Gaza Strip and, along with a few other Hamas leaders, has lived in luxury while dividing his time between Turkey and Qatar. With new elections planned for this spring, Hamas will struggle to campaign like an underdog that is above exchanging its principles for material comfort.
It remains to be seen whether the elections decreed by President Mahmoud Abbas will actually be held. Much depends on whether your secular Fatah party and Hamas can reach some kind of agreement overcoming the bitter divisions that have prevented previous attempts to vote.
But it is clear that the image of Hamas among many Palestinians, even former supporters, has suffered since 2007, when the group took Gaza from Abbas’ forces in a week of bloody street battles.
Since then, Hamas has established its own quasi-state with its own civilian service and security forces. But it has struggled to provide even basic services with the Gaza economy ravaged by three wars with Israel and an Israeli-Egyptian blockade that has confined the territory’s 2 million inhabitants to what the Palestinians often call the largest open-air prison in the world. .
The fact that some of its leaders left Gaza did not help. Hamas leaders who rose through the ranks when they were still an underground militant group exchanged their street clothes and motorcycles for shiny suits and SUVs. Some, like Haniyeh, have moved to luxury hotels in Turkey and Qatar, leaving lower-ranking officials and ordinary Palestinians to deal with the consequences of their policies.
“Each year, the situation goes from bad to worse,” said Youssef Ahmed, who works at a food stall in a market in eastern Gaza City. “People don’t have the money to buy basic things.”
Still, although the inhabitants of Gaza grumble privately, they rarely speak out against Hamas, which has a history of arresting critics.
Ahmed said he blames “everyone” – Hamas, Israel and the Abbas Palestinian Authority. But he said that as a governing power, Hamas has a special responsibility.
Haniyeh, who became Palestinian Prime Minister after the 2006 elections and is now the general leader of Hamas, left Gaza in 2019 for what Hamas said was a temporary trip abroad. He hasn’t come back yet.
A recent video that appeared on social media showed Haniyeh playing football in a well-kept field under the gas-rich Qatar glass skyscrapers – worlds away from the Beach Refugee Camp in Gaza City, where he was born and still lives. maintains a family home. Another video from Monday showed him in a tailored suit surrounded by bodyguards and being received by dignitaries from Qatar at an event on the red carpet.
Meanwhile, in Gaza, Palestinians face 50% unemployment, frequent power cuts and polluted tap water.
This is largely due to the blockade, which Israel says is necessary to prevent Hamas from importing weapons. Israel and most Western countries consider Hamas to be a terrorist group because it has carried out several attacks over the years, including suicide bombings, which have killed hundreds of Israeli civilians. A long-running dispute between Hamas and the Abbas Palestinian Authority over the provision of aid and services to Gaza has made things worse.
Hamas blames Gaza’s suffering on the Palestinian Authority, Israel and the international community.
“There is a popular awareness that it is not Hamas’ fault and that outside sides want to undermine the democratic experience,” said Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem. He said that Hamas still has “massive” popular support and would win a majority in any future election.
He added that Hamas members in Gaza have also suffered from wars, isolation and economic collapse.
Yet, suffering is not shared equally.
Qatar has sent hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to Gaza in recent years to support an informal ceasefire. That money allowed the Hamas-run government to pay its civil servants – while imposing taxes on imports, exports, businesses and tobacco that many ordinary Palestinians have resented for compounding their suffering. Hamas security forces violently repressed protests against these measures.
In another example of inequality in Gaza, a “fast track” through the Rafah crossing with Egypt – the only way in which most people in Gaza can enter and leave the territory – is available to those who can pay high fees or have contacts with Egyptian authorities. In the past few months, three of Haniyeh’s children have appeared on the list, which was released by the Hamas-led Interior Ministry. Other travelers must go through a long authorization process.
Ahmed Yousef, a former adviser to Haniyeh who moved to Istanbul, acknowledges that the group falls short of its professed ideals.
“We present ourselves as a popular movement, not an elite or factional movement, so it should compel us to better serve the needs and problems of the people,” he said.
Akram Atallah, a longtime columnist for the West Bank newspaper Al-Ayyam, who moved from Gaza to London in 2019, said Hamas tried to use the “duality” of being a government and militant group in its favor. When criticized for not providing basic services, he claims to be a resistance group; when criticized for imposing taxes, he says it is a legitimate government, he said.
Hamas can still do well in any election, not least because its main competitor, Fatah, has an even longer track record of failure. The upper echelons of Fatah are widely seen as full of corrupt individuals who are more interested in taking advantage of VIP status with Israel than in advancing the struggle for the state.
A December poll by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Research revealed that support for parties was close – 38% for Hamas, compared with 34% for Fatah – but predicted that Haniyeh would defeated Abbas handily in a presidential race. The group surveyed 1,270 Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, with a margin of error of 3 percentage points.
Assuming the elections are held, “it looks like (Fatah and Hamas) will dominate the next parliament, but none of them will have a majority,” said Khalil Shikaki, the head of the center. He said independent candidates and minor factions would win the remaining seats.
Atallah, the journalist, says that Hamas is still able to appeal to “the emotions of the people”, but that the dominance it once held over many has faded.
“Hamas as an authority has been exposed,” he said. “The people found that their leaders live much better than they do.”
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Associated Press writer Joseph Krauss in Ramallah, West Bank, contributed to this report.
Originally published