"Islam is the solution" in Hamas-run Gaza jail

Gaza, July 11: About 100 inmates in Gaza's main prison are growing accustomed to a different kind of life behind bars now that Hamas Islamists have taken charge.

For one thing, the prison barber, himself a convict, has posted a sign saying he no longer shaves beards, an abstinence symbolic of Islamic religious devotion.

And graffiti, scrawled by Hamas fighters who seized the facility in their rout of the secular Fatah faction in a brief Gaza civil war last month, advises that ''Islam is the solution'' and pledges ''No injustice from now on''.

For the common criminals and clutch of alleged collaborators with Israel in the Hamas-run prison, that has translated into promises by the movement's officials to review their cases.

''I hanged the killer who had hanged my 15-year-old son,'' said Jamal Badoueya, voicing his hope that Hamas would reconsider his conviction.

He was one of several inmates interviewed in the prison after Hamas agreed to a Reuters request to tour the facility yesterday.

Some comments were made in the presence of Hamas officials. But jailers were not always in earshot when the prisoners spoke, some of them in praise of their treatment.

''Now we can sit with our families and touch our kids,'' said Hazem al-Khaldi, holding his four-year-old daughter.

Khaldi, in the fourth month of a one-year sentence for theft, said Hamas had loosened restrictions on family visits since taking over the prison and permitted some prisoners to go home on furloughs.

A lighter hand could help Hamas's 6,000-member Executive Force tackle some of the duties, including overseeing the prison, once the bailiwick of the 40,000-strong forces loyal to President Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah.

ESCAPE

Prison director Ali Hmaid said Fatah guards had fled the facility during last month's fighting, releasing more than 500 prisoners into the street to cover their escape.

''Sixty of (the prisoners) have returned. We know where all the others are and we are giving them the chance to hand themselves over,'' he said. ''I tell them come back because no one will be dealt with by injustice any more.'' Hmaid said he had no Fatah activists or political prisoners in the jail, except for those convicted of providing information to Israel's secret service.

Some Fatah officials and human rights groups have accused the Executive Force of secretly holding Fatah prisoners elsewhere in the Gaza Strip.

Hamas has denied this along with accounts by some Fatah security men that they had been tortured by Hamas fighters who came to detain and disarm them.

Inside the prison, cell doors were open, a new procedure, prisoners said, and some inmates were working in its sewing factory, which had long been closed.

Youssef al-Sinwar, accused of helping Israel track and kill three senior militants of the Popular Resistance Committees, said he bolted from the prison when fleeing Fatah jailers opened the main gate.

But he said was innocent of the charges and returned to his cell after Hamas promised to look into his case.

''Nothing happened yet,'' Sinwar said. ''We are waiting.''

REUTERS

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