Word: nablus
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Salah Darwazeh provides a case in point. Before the intifadeh, Darwazeh, a Hamas bombmaker, got to know members of Arafat's Force 17 security unit when they guarded his cell at the Jeneid prison in the West Bank city of Nablus. When he was released, he paid them to watch over his bombmaking lab on Wadi Tuffah Street in Nablus, an arrangement that continued until Darwazeh was assassinated by Israel in July. Other examples of common effort...
...were negotiated under a dovish government. He immediately delivered on his vow, sending his troops, backed by tanks, into West Bank towns to arrest 50 suspected militants. For good measure, Israeli fighter planes and helicopter gunships blasted buildings belonging to Arafat's various security forces. In a gunfight near Nablus, Israeli troops killed six Palestinian policemen...
...sets up three leadership groups: if the first team is killed, a second immediately takes its place, then a third. It takes some time for Israeli and Palestinian intelligence to figure out the successions. After Israel wiped out the two top Hamas men in the West Bank city of Nablus last summer, a local Palestinian Authority official complained to Arafat that he couldn't identify the new chain of command to deal with...
...side of Hamas is its greatest strength and its best cover. About 60% of the budget goes to dawah, the legitimate network of schools, mosques, orphanages, clinics, youth clubs, athletic teams and libraries that Hamas has spread into virtually every corner of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. In Nablus before the new intifadeh, 3,700 families received financial help from Hamas; now 7,000 do. Among the services offered are lifetime annuities to sustain the families of suicide bombers recruited from Hamas classrooms and soccer fields. "These guys kill Israelis, but they also secure their families from poverty," says...
Hamas has also figured out how to make political inroads in a society that has few of the usual manifestations of democracy. Its supporters dominate most university student councils, which are important gauges of youthful allegiance. On Nov. 12, when students at An-Najah National University in Nablus voted for their council, Hamas increased to 48 seats from 42, while Arafat's party, Fatah, slid from 34 to 28. Hamas helped secure those votes earlier in the year, when it opened four apartment buildings where students pay just $40 a month for room, board and utilities...