civil war in gaza?:
Palestinian observers speaking to the Weekly attribute the infighting -- which forced Interior Minister Hani Al-Qawasmeh to resign on Sunday -- to three factors. First is the inability of Hamas's and Fatah's leaders to control their respective military wings, largely made up of young, inexperienced and undisciplined trigger-happy men. The repeated collapse of ceasefire agreements reached between the two sides over recent months supports such a view.
(...) But the situation is complicated by the overlap between factional and tribal concerns. Clans, many of which have their own militias, often carry out revenge killings, which draw factions into fresh clashes.
(...) Then there is Israel, which has a vested interest, fuelled by political and propaganda considerations, in pushing Gaza into civil war. Israeli tactics have increasingly been to use Palestinian infighting as a smokescreen to evade any serious peace process that would involve Israel giving up the spoils of the 1967 War. Israel's siege of Gaza, which has involved the confiscation of almost 50 per cent of Palestinian tax revenues, has been aided and abetted by Washington's blockade of the present government. The result has been to turn Gaza into a pressure cooker on the verge of explosion, with the Palestinian authorities unable to meet the basic needs of the population, be that paying employees their salaries or protecting them from Israel's attempts at ethnic cleansing.