Gaza Is Calm After Hamas Gains Control - New York Times

Gaza Is Calm After Hamas Gains Control - New York Times: "June 15, 2007
Gaza Is Calm After Hamas Gains Control
By ISABEL KERSHNER and STEVEN ERLANGER

JERUSALEM -- Gaza was quiet Friday after five days of fighting in which Hamas completed its conquest of the Gaza Strip from its Fatah rivals.

The West Bank and Gaza territories that President Bush said he wanted to see become an independent Palestinian state before he left office appeared torn asunder.

Hamas said it arrested 10 senior Fatah leaders in the strip, including the commanders of President Mahmoud Abbas’s elite guard unit and the chief of the National Security force. But a Hamas spokesman, Abu Obeideh, said all Fatah prisoners would be released unharmed.

Though he and other Hamas leaders claimed their men were under control, there were instances of post-revolutionary looting of prominent Fatah symbols, including the luxurious house of Muhammad Dahlan, the former Fatah security chief in Gaza, now in Ramallah. Masked men of the Hamas military wing stripped the house of everything down to the bathroom tiles, and they were followed by the poor, salvaging wood and metal.

The victors also said they would take control of Gaza’s crossing with Egypt.

The crossing, which has been closed since the outbreak of fighting this week, is monitored by European ob"