AP News, June 16th, 2007
Panic buying for bread spiked so drastically that bakery owner Bishara Shahadeh started passing out tickets Saturday morning, to be redeemed for yet-to-be-baked loaves. By early afternoon, he had issued 88 tickets.
"There's a lot of pressure today," he said, passing out coupons to 10 new customers. "We're working two shifts."
The mad rush for bread, flour and other essentials reflected the uncertainty Gazans feel following Hamas' takeover and the closure of the area's Israeli-controlled borders.
"I have flour to last me for the next 10 days," Shahadeh said. "After that, if there's no flour, there's no work."
One man came in and asked about the wait. Shahadeh told him an hour.
"I can't find bread without standing in line," the man said as he left. He'd been to three bakeries.
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After hearing that Hamas gunmen looted the house of former Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, six men who once worked in his presidential guard came to protect the building from further damage.
"It's all worthless, but I have to do something," said Abu Mustafa, tying the house's gates shut with string.
"No one could stop them from going in," he added. "We don't have weapons and we have no power."
His unarmed colleagues stood in the driveway in civilian clothes, smoking cigarettes and shooing away kids who had come to loot. Some carried stuff they had snatched from neighboring homes.
"God bless him," Abu Mustafa said of his old boss, who led he Palestinians for four decades before his death in 2004. "Our days of blessing have ended."
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Women waved their hands and screeched in celebration. A gathering mob shouted "Film the dog! Film the dog!" as a battered body was dragged through a dusty hallway, then shot twice, ending the life of Fatah militiaman Samih Madhoun.
This grizzly footage appeared on militant Web sites Saturday, reflecting the bitter hatred fueling this week's factional war in the Gaza Strip.
Hamas had longed to kill Madhoun, who led a 1,500-member force set up as a counterweight to a Hamas militia.
For his part, Madhoun had boasted in a radio interivew of his role in killings and kidnappings of Hamas members and vowed to "slaughter" more "like sheep in the streets" after Hamas torched his house.
The grainy, 34-second clip concludes with a large crowd kicking Madhoun's body before cutting to a masked gunman making a call to prayer.
