Gaza City: The young tea and coffee vendor from northern Gaza said he was not asking for much. He just wanted to get by.
So the vendor, Amir Abu Oun, 19, joined the peaceful protests in the Jabaliya refugee camp this month against the daily hardships in the impoverished Palestinian coastal enclave.
The first day, he said, security forces from Hamas, the militant Islamist movement that controls the Gaza Strip, beat and punched him. The second day, he was detained and held for five days, during which he said he was slapped, beaten and deprived of food.
“Injustice will not last,” he told the security officers.
According to Abu Oun, they replied, “We will show you how injustice will last.”
Hamas security forces moved quickly this month to quell the protests that brought hundreds of people into the streets in at least four camps and towns across Gaza to demand better living conditions.
The security forces beat demonstrators, raided homes and detained organisers, journalists and participants, about 1000 people in all. Along with the uniformed officers, masked, plainclothes Hamas enforcers armed with pistols, batons and wooden rods attacked the protesters, according to witnesses, and prevented journalists and human rights workers from documenting the events.
Since then, many Gazans say they have been living under a pall of fear — not of Israel this time but of Hamas.
Read the article by Iyad Abuheweila and Isabel Kershner in The Age (from The New York Times).