Hamas' inexcusable demolition of Gaza homes

20 May 2010
The Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, is playing into the hands of the Israelis and certain Arab regimes by precipitating its own failure as the government of Gaza Strip. Having demonstrated its inability to rule, Hamas will be swiftly overthrown which is exactly what its enemies wish for it since it adheres to the resistance option, upholding the Palestinian constants of not recognizing the Hebraic State and the restoration of all occupied territories from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River. Furthermore it stands under the banner of the Islamic faith as a system of government.

Likewise, we are well aware that the Palestinian National Authority [PNA] in Ramallah colludes with the current blockade of the Gaza Strip, and participates directly in Arab and US efforts to incriminate Hamas' right to govern and dismiss it as null and void. So much so that the PNA's envoy to the United Nations in New York approved an Israeli bill submitted to the UN Security Council which categorized Hamas as illegal.

We acknowledge and realize all these and other facts. Yet we believe that the Hamas government has continually committed mistakes, sometimes disastrous ones, which provide its enemies with ammunition to present a distorted view of it and incite the people of Gaza against it, rendering its administration of the situation there more difficult. We say this because of reports that Hamas has destroyed more than 20 houses in the Tall al-Sultan area south of Rafah, displacing more than 150 citizens on the pretext that these houses were illegally built on state land without permit, and that a verdict was passed by the High Court for their removal. We do not object to the implementation of the law, but we do object to the timing and the way the verdict was carried out. Hamas government bulldozers demolished the houses without mercy or compassion and without providing shelter to those affected by this measure.

The demolition of houses belonging to the poor, destitute, besieged, and starved Gazan people at a time when the Egyptian and Israeli authorities prevent the entry of a single bag of cement to the Gaza Strip, and when some 65,000 people are still displaced and live on the ruins of their homes, thanks to Israeli bombardment during the latest aggression against the Gaza Strip, demonstrates miscalculation by a government that came to power to serve the people who elected it, and to rule in their name, a government that is regarded the closest to these people and the most understanding of their plight.

We do not want to open old wounds, but we believe that we are duty-bound to remind Hamas of another mistake that took place in Rafah: a Hamas security force demolished the Imam Bin-Taymiyah mosque, killing approximately 20 people who took shelter in the mosque behind their prayer leader, a cleric who many said was a pious man and with true faith. That tragedy could have been avoided by encircling the mosque and negotiating with the group barricading themselves in it until they got tired and surrendered, just as happens with hijackers of airliners.

No harm would have been done to Hamas or its police if it deferred the demolition of those houses for a few months until the situation improved, the strangulating blockade eased, and the oppressive criminal ban on shipment of essential necessities to the beleaguered was lifted, including cement to rebuild what had been destroyed by the Israeli bombardment, and repair damaged houses.

The Gaza Strip is not Sweden or Switzerland, and its people do not live in luxury so that the law could be literally implemented against them. After all, the law is supposed to serve citizens not to displace them and throw them in the open. Our master, Caliph Umar Bin-al-Khattab, suspended the law on punishment of thieves in the Al-Ramadah year [a year of extremely severe drought in the early era of Islam], although it is a basic law in the Islamic shari'ah. We do not believe that the head of the Hamas Land Department or the Hamas Chief Justice, who passed the demolition verdict, are more just or more understanding of law than our master Umar Bin-al-Khattab, may God be pleased with him.

The political authority in the Gaza Strip should have been more aware and more understanding of the people's problems and the seriousness of such a step to its credibility and to the people's view of it. Regrettably, it did not behave in a responsible and enlightened way; failing to intervene and defer implementation of the verdict, if it did not want to override it.

Admittedly, the land on which those houses were randomly and illegally built is owned by the state and registered in its name. But it is also true that those people are citizens of the state, and were forced to breach the law under extraordinary circumstances. This problem should have been addressed in an extraordinary way too, such as asking those people to pay the price of the land by convenient instalments over a long period of time, or waiting until the situation improved.

There are shanty towns built on state land in all cities of the world, towns which in time become established facts. All Arab capitals are surrounded by shanty towns; even Paris failed to evade this phenomenon. Is it strange that Rafah should be treated as if it were a utopia and the exception in the world?

The Egyptian government faced a similar crisis a few years ago when the Supreme Court passed a verdict to remove 70 towers built in a state-owned desert land in the Kilometre 4.5 area on the highway to Suez. When this case was referred to the People's Assembly, it nullified the Supreme Court verdict and stopped the demolition of the towers. The area of the Gaza Strip is not larger than 150 square miles where one million people live, mostly poor refugees, who have no water, electricity, metals or even fish. And the Israeli blockade made the life of those people even more intolerable. Moreover, the Hamas government imposes taxes on everything, facing as it does the impossible task of providing security and feeding the starving.

We vehemently reject the attempt by certain PNA officials in Ramallah to fish in troubled water and to draw a parallel between Hamas police demolition of some houses in Rafah and the Israeli demolition of houses in occupied villages. Hamas applied the law even if the timing and method were wrong. But the Israeli authorities break the law and exercise ethnic cleansing against the people of the land whose roots there go back thousands of years. Those who collaborate with the enemy and practice torture against honourable men who reject the occupation, and those who collude, directly or indirectly, with the blockade, are the least entitled to criticize the mistakes of others, mistakes which pale beside their own treachery and sins.

We hope that the Hamas government in the Gaza Strip will stop such offensive measures, which incite people, or a segment of them, against its rule, and which give its many enemies pretexts to aim their venomous darts at it. There are numerous more important issues that should be high on the list of Hamas's priorities, which we do not believe the demolition of the houses of the destitute and poor is one of them, particularly by a government that rules according to the Islamic shari'ah. The citizens are more deserving of care and compassion.

Hamas has made major achievements, most notably its steadfastness in the face of Israeli aggression, a steadfastness which would not have been possible were it not for the people's rallying around it and their resistance of the occupation alongside Hamas fighters. Those people offered hundreds of martyrs whose bodies were tortured by white phosphorus. We have not heard any of those men or their relatives complain. Rather, we heard them emphasize their readiness to offer more sacrifices for the sake of the resistance and its doctrine. This patient, resisting, and starving people who are deprived of the most basic means of survival and decent living, are worthy of better treatment by the Hamas government, its police, and its higher and lower courts.