Hamas has started deploying armed fighters and police across parts of Gaza in an apparent attempt to reassert authority in the devastated Palestinian territory after the ceasefire deal agreed with Israel last week.
Images showed dozens of Hamas fighters at a hospital in southern Gaza during the release of Israeli hostages on Monday morning, 13 October, and there were reports of shootings and executions elsewhere in the territory.
Telegram channels associated with Hamas said “collaborators and traitors” had been targeted, a reference to Israel-backed militia in the territory, while Hamas gunmen also engaged in bloody clashes with a powerful local family in Gaza City over the weekend.
The violence is unlikely to immediately threaten the current ceasefire agreement with Israel but raises significant concerns over the disarmament of Hamas, a key though ill-defined provision of the deal, and the challenges that will confront the new stabilisation force of regional troops that is to be deployed to Gaza.
Asked by a journalist on Air Force One about reports that Hamas was moving against rivals to regain control in parts of Gaza, the US president, Donald Trump, suggested the militant Islamist organisation was acting within the parameters of the ceasefire deal.
“They do want to stop the problems and they’ve been open about it, and we gave them approval for a period of time … You have close to 2 million people going back to buildings that have been demolished, and a lot of bad things can happen. So we want it to be – we want it to be safe. I think it’s going to be fine;who knows for sure,” Trump said.
Today, the first steps of the first phase of the new agreement were completed with the release by Hamas and transfer to Israel of 20 living hostages.
Simultaneously, Israeli authorities began freeing about 2,000 prisoners, including 250 serving lengthy sentences.
Hundreds of trucks of aid and commercial goods have entered Gaza since Sunday, sending prices in markets tumbling.
Famine was declared in parts of the territory in August and aid agencies say much greater quantities of supplies are needed urgently.
Looting by organised gangs or desperate communities made distribution of aid in Gaza extremely difficult for major humanitarian organizations, which were also hampered by Israeli restrictions and ongoing combat operations.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have already withdrawn to new positions and currently control just over half of Gaza.
Much of the territory is in ruins, with the population now concentrated along the coastal zone of al-Mawasi, the badly damaged towns of the centre and Gaza City.
Hamas exerted a significant degree of control over these three areas even if the group maintained a low profile, Israeli military officials and senior aid workers said last month.
But the militant group has suffered significant losses during the two-year conflict with Israel, with most of its senior or middle-ranking military commanders and thousands of lower-ranking fighters killed.
Police officers were targeted by Israel and prisons destroyed along with a lot of other infrastructure.
Law and order has collapsed across much of Gaza, with armed families, clans, gangs, looters and militia growing more powerful.
At the weekend, Hossam al-Astal, the leader of a new militia aligned with Israel, was defiant.
“To all the Hamas rats, your tunnels are destroyed, your rights don’t exist any more. Repent before it is too late – there is no Hamas from today onward,” he said in a social media post.
Al-Astal was unwilling to talk when contacted on Monday.
Also now vulnerable is Yasser Abu Shabab, the leader of the so-called Popular Forces, an Israel-backed militia based in the south of Gaza.
There are unconfirmed reports of punishment beatings and shootings of members of his faction.
One Hamas security official said a hunt was under way for Abu Shabab, adding that one of the fugitive leader’s aides had been “liquidated” in recent days.
“The security campaign is continuing and escalating until this issue is completely over, and no party will be allowed to violate the law,” he said.
In a statement, the Ministry of Interior in Gaza, which has been controlled by Hamas since the group seized power in 2007, said it was making efforts to restore “security and stability” in the territory, but that “the gate for repentance and general amnesty” was open for all those who joined “gangs” but were not involved in any murders.
“All concerned individuals must surrender to security services within a week to settle their legal and security status and permanently close their files”, the Ministry said.
Only one of the fighters seen escorting hostages to Red Cross vehicles on Monday appeared to be wearing Hamas insignia: a shoulder patch showed him to be a member of an elite unit of Hamas’s military wing, the Izz al-Din al-Qassam brigades.
Hamas flags and headbands were absent, a marked contrast to the elaborately staged hostage handovers earlier this year that Israel cited as a justification for its decision to break the short-lived ceasefire.
*PHOTO CAPTION: An armed Hamas fighter surrounded by children in Gaza.
