Word: palestinians
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...scorching heat of the Palestinian territories, you wouldn't think a woolly ski mask would be popular. But for Palestinian militants, the ski mask is an essential fashion accessory, just like the Kalashnikov assault rifle. The mask confers a sinister power, anonymity and a definite edge. The idea is that you don't know who is shooting at you from behind the ski mask, so you can't take revenge...
...Gaza the members of Hamas have stripped off their masks, because they are the victors. For months Hamas and its rival, Fatah, loyal to President Mahmoud Abbas, brawled for power in the Palestinian enclave of Gaza--until June 10, when the shooting erupted into a climactic, vicious battle. Hamas didn't so much destroy the Fatah forces as cow them into surrender: only 5,000 of the 45,000 men on Abbas' payroll actually put up the pretense of a fight. And for the most part, top Fatah commanders deserted their men, either fleeing on foot to Egypt or aboard...
Most of these small Palestinian military bases have existed since the early 1970s and are separate from the 12 established Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon where the estimated population of some 350,000 refugees live. In early 2006, Lebanon's top leaders agreed that the Palestinian military bases would be closed down within a six-month time frame. But the decision went unfulfilled as more pressing political crises emerged, overshadowing the fate of the bases. In an interview with TIME, Mohammed Chatah, senior advisor to Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora described the bases as "a nuisance at the very least...
...That could spur U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon to recommend dispatching a U.N. observer mission to monitor the porous frontier. Such a decision will anger Damascus, which has repeatedly stated its opposition to an international presence along its border with Lebanon. It will further add pressure on the Palestinian bases, which are linked to Syria via numerous remote trails that criss-cross the mountainous border. The Lebanese army tightened control over the bases 18 months ago, manning checkpoints on the approach roads and monitoring movements of the Palestinian militants. A corner of southeast Lebanon near the villages of Yanta...
...Amine, the gray-haired commander in Naameh, said that they would abandon the military posts and return to the refugee camps if Palestinians in Lebanon were given basic civil rights. The Palestinians are tightly controlled in Lebanon, barred from all but menial labor. "They talk about Naameh as an illegitimate security zone, but we will never take sides against the patriotic Lebanese army," says this grizzled veteran of the Palestinian revolution dressed in an old U.S. army desert camouflage uniform and sandals. Still, the reinforcements at Naameh and the alert fighters suggests that despite talk of peace, the militants...