The Beast eats itself - the Palestinian civil war moves into high gear

The mob war for the control of `Palestine' has moved up to a new level. Over 20 people have been killed in the last 24 hours.

And Hamas has essentially taken over most of the Gaza Strip.

The latest fighting has been particularly savage, even by Palestinian terms. Lately,the Palestinians have taken to executing each other by throwing people off of tall buildings.

Hospitals aren't immune either - Hamas gunmen have been targeting injured Fatah fighters, killing them in ambulances and Beit Hanoun hospital beds, while the Fatah-allied Bakr clan attacked the Hamas-controlled Shifa hospital in revenge.

Palestinian Hamas PM Ismail Haniyeh's house in Gaza was attacked by Fatah with automatic weapons and RPGs not once, but twice. A Hamas Web site described the incident as an assassination attempt. Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum accused Fatah of targeting Palestinian institutions to undermine Hamas rule. "They crossed all the red lines," he said.

The attempted hit on Haniyeh was the spark for a major offensive by Hamas that took out most of the Fatah positions in the northern Gaza Strip.

Hamas executed the top Fatah comander in Gaza, Jamal Abud a-Jediyan and his brother. They then sent the entire 15,000-strong Hamas Executive Force, armed with mortars, RPGs, heavy machine guns and grenades on an assault on Fatah's command posts and bases, forcing Fatah from most of its strongholds in Gaza and capturing the headquarters of the Fatah security forces in northern Gaza.

Not suprisingly, Fatah's senior Gaza capo Mohammed Dahlan slipped out of Gaza as soon as the fighting started, leaving his men to function as best they could.

Even long-time Fatah spokesmouth and ex-foreign minister Nabil Sha-ath didn't escape unscathed - a gang of Hamas fighters targeted his house in the Sudaniyeh neighborhood of Gaza City and shot it up, along with a couple of his bodyguards.

What we're seeing here is the beginning of a long brewing civil war, the separation of Palestinian rule between Hamas-controlled Gaza and the Fatah-led West Bank.

I can't but wonder if this was what was in Ariel Sharon's mind when he ruthlessly purged Jewish residents from Gaza and turned it over to the Palestinians..it's almost as if he knew what would happen and merely wanted the world to see first hand what an absolute hellhole the Palestinians would make of it, left to their own devices.

The truth of the matter is that aside from a hatred of Jews and Israel and a shared feeling of victimization, there's very little to unite the `Palestinians' into a nation. They are divided by clans, by national origin, by affiliation with various gang bosses, by faction and by a number of other factors.

The Bush Administration, true to form is putting major pressure on Israel to allow frsh weapons shipments of Israeli ammunition and weapons to Fatah to help them prevail in Gaza. As of today, the Israelis are balking, mainly because recent events have reminded them that weaponry turned over to Palestinians eventually ends up being used to kill Israelis. For that matter, Fatah spokesmen admitted that with the capture of the Fatah HQ and bases, Hamas got hold of thousands of rifles, large amounts of ammunition and dozens of vehicles, including armored jeeps..all part of the weapons shipments given to Abbas by the US and allowed to pass into Gaza by the Olmert government.

"How do we explain it if mortar shells with Israeli markings are then used to shell towns inside Israel?" one Israeli source is reported to have said.

More to the point, it's doubtful that any last-minute infusion of weapons could shift the battle in Fatah's favor. With their main bases taken, most of their leadership inflight and droves of Fatah fighters reportedly surrendering to Hamas, Fatah simply lacks the strength on the ground in Gaza to win.

Fatah will have enough of a problem holding on to the Palestinian territories in the West Bank.