Boy's death ignites rare anti-Hamas protests in Gaza
Published today (updated) 26/09/2012 15:04
By Nidal al-Mughrabi
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=523726

GAZA CITY (Reuters) -- At least 500 protesters in the Gaza Strip have called
for the overthrow of the ruling Hamas government in a rare demonstration
triggered by the death of a three-year-old boy in a fire during a power
outage.

Protesters in the Bureij refugee camp, where the boy's family live, called
for Hamas to be toppled and chanted "The people want to down the regime"
late on Tuesday night, echoing slogans adopted in Arab revolutions in
neighboring countries. The police swiftly dispersed the crowd.

Demonstrators took to the streets as the boy's body was being moved to a
hospital, saying they were protesting against the incompetent way Hamas
ruled Gaza. Anger spilled over after the boy died and his infant sister
suffered critical burns when a candle lit amid a power outage burnt their
house down.

Anti-Hamas protests in Gaza, where power failures have left households with
just six hours of electricity a day since February, are extremely rare.
Three children were killed earlier in the year by similar fires during an
outage.

Hamas blames the electricity shortages on Egypt which it says is restricting
the flow of fuel, and on Israel, which imposed a blockade on the coastal
enclave in 2007 when Hamas seized control from the Western-backed Fatah.

More protests?

The dead boy's father called for more protests, saying he hoped a healing of
internal Palestinian political rifts could ease the Strip's problems.

"I call on people to take to the streets and not to fear being clubbed by
policemen," Abdel-Fattah Al-Baghdadi, 23, told Reuters.

"I hold both the governments in Gaza and in the West Bank responsible for
what happened to us," he said.

Earning 1,250 shekels ($318) a month from working as a civil guard at the
Religious Affairs Ministry, he said he had been using candles to light his
house during blackouts because he could not afford to buy a generator or
fuel.

"Besides my wife and two children, I had to spend money to help my bigger
family," he said.

Taher al-Nono, a spokesman for the Hamas government in Gaza, said the death
of Baghdadi's son was a message to Egypt that it had to speed up its
promised efforts to help solve the power crisis in Gaza.

"The international community's silence is an accomplice in the crime of
blockading Gaza," Nono said in a statement.

Hamas is sensitive to criticism and has looked on with concern as protests
in the Israeli-occupied West Bank against high prices have spread in the
past few weeks, fearing they may spill over into its own territory.

Hamas has banned protests, including any demonstrations calling for an end
to divisions between it and Fatah.

On Tuesday, police in Gaza dispersed what they said was an unlicensed rally
organized by dozens of women calling for unity between Gaza and the West
Bank.