From Beirut to Gaza, violence follows Gaza woman

Gaza, May 18: As a nine-year-old Palestinian girl living in Beirut, Siham Ali witnessed gun battles in 1982 between Palestine Liberation Organisation fighters and an invading Israeli army.

Now a resident of Gaza, she and her four-year-old son face danger from a another direction -- fellow Palestinians, members of rival armed factions battling for control of the territory.

''I have never forgotten those scenes in Beirut. How can I possibly forget what I have seen today and that it happened between brothers,'' Ali asked.

Nearly a week of particularly brutal fighting in Gaza between Hamas and Fatah movements has forced many of its 1.5 million inhabitants indoors and closed shops and schools.

''I stayed without medicine for two days,'' Abu Abed, a 40-year-old Gazan, said.

''People could understand being besieged by the Israelis -- but by their own sons? This is something that is impossible to tolerate,'' he said.

Ali said the fighting, in which more than 40 Palestinians have been killed, has virtually destroyed a dream of statehood.

''When we arrived in Gaza we dreamed of stability and a state but we ended up killing each other,'' said the former Beirut resident, who returned to the coastal strip with her father, a PLO security official, in 1995 after interim peace deals with Israel.

''It is a struggle over seats and governance,'' she said.

While leaders of Hamas and Fatah -- partners in a coalition government -- traded blame over the violence, gunmen from both sides continued to deploy in the Gaza's streets and man checkpoints.

Ahmed, a local journalist who lives in the southern Gaza Strip, said he passed at least 10 roadblocks in one 15-km- (9-mile)-long stretch on the drive into Gaza City.

''They stopped us at every checkpoint. I thought we were in Afghanistan,'' he said, declining to give his family name.

Umm Shadi, a mother of five, said she and her family were lucky to be alive after two shells fired by militants hit their house.

''I tried to open the window and they fired at our house. I did not understand why,'' she said.

''We used to be proud of them when they fought the Jews but now all we hope for is that we can leave town.''

Reuters>