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Coolassprov MC
15-06-07, 08:00
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19230594/site/newsweek/page/2/

They were supposed to impose the Israeli (dis)order in Gaza: "After a group of them detonated a small explosive device that blew a hole in the border fence, dozens of Preventive Security men rushed through a gap, and out of Gaza. "It was obvious they were running for their lives," says Said Kaman, a Rafah-based taxi driver who witnessed the explosion. "It was like they were flying in the air. They were so scared. I don't think they'll ever come back.""

Gaza Takeover

Gaza: Powerful Symbol Falls to Hamas



By midweek, few Preventive Security operatives in Gaza had the will to stand and fight. On Wednesday, while Hamas systematically took over police station after police station as it consolidated its control over the territory, some Fatah fighters fled toward the Egyptian border. After a group of them detonated a small explosive device that blew a hole in the border fence, dozens of Preventive Security men rushed through a gap, and out of Gaza. "It was obvious they were running for their lives," says Said Kaman, a Rafah-based taxi driver who witnessed the explosion. "It was like they were flying in the air. They were so scared. I don't think they'll ever come back."
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The collapse of Preventive Security in Gaza was a blow to American policymakers, who have been hoping that forces loyal to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas would be able to hold off a Hamas onslaught. Western diplomats often speak admiringly of Mohammad Dahlan, now a top security adviser to Abbas, as the one figure strong enough to rally the Fatah troops in Gaza. And the U.S. has earmarked tens of millions of dollars in aid to Abbas's Presidential Guard forces, which have close ties with Preventive Security. Israelis have always been more cautious about aid to Gazan armed groups, but in recent months even some top Israeli officials have supported weapons shipments from neighboring Arab countries.

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Gaza: Fighting Takes Toll on Civilians

Yet this week's gun battles are sure to scramble the American and Israeli calculus. In the West Bank, forces loyal to Abbas remain a formidable presence; Thursday morning its troops swept through the territory, arresting dozens of Hamas figures. Yet in Gaza, even top Preventive Security officers admit that their organization is all but finished. Reached early Thursday evening by NEWSWEEK, one of Preventive Security's senior leaders in Gaza, who didn't want to be identified because he was embarrassed, sounded a defeatist note. "When a Preventive Security member used to walk the streets of Gaza, the ground underneath his feet would shake," he said. Now, he acknowledged, his organization is "left with no future." If the Hamas conquest continues, that could be true of Fatah’s control of Gaza too.

With Nuha Musleh in the West Bank