Israel Targets Hamas Orphanages

By Peter Hirschberg

"JERUSALEM, Jul 15 (IPS) - Shopping malls. Schools. Medical centres. Charities, orphanages. Soup kitchens. These are the latest targets in the campaign the Israeli military is waging against Hamas in the West Bank.

Israeli military officials have identified Hamas's civilian infrastructure in the West Bank as a major source of the Islamic group's popularity, and have begun raiding and shutting down these institutions in cities like Hebron, Nablus and Qalqilyah.

Last week, troops focused their efforts in Nablus, raiding the city hall and confiscating computers. They also stormed into a shopping mall and posted closure notices on the shop windows. A girls' school and a medical centre were shut down in the city, and a charitable association had its computers impounded and documents seized......

By moving against Hamas institutions, Israel runs the risk of increasing the popularity of the Islamic movement and, at the same time, undermining that of Abbas and his Fatah party, who are perceived, correctly or not, as the intended beneficiaries -- even if unwitting and unwilling ones -- of this policy.

What's more, Hamas's popularity does not derive only from its network of schools and charities, but is also very much a direct function of the deep disillusionment among the Palestinian people with the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority and its inability to deliver on its key promises, the central one being an independent state in the West Bank and Gaza.....

Many Israeli ministers are highly sceptical about Abbas's ability to deliver on any peace deal, and so put little store in the negotiations that were renewed last December. Some ministers have even called for the release of Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti.....Barghouti, they say, has the political standing among Palestinians that will be required to pull off a deal with Israel, and could draw enough support to wrest back the agenda from Hamas......"