Four months after the Hamas takeover of Gaza, the usually hidden arguments between the group's rival camps were unexpectedly laid bare, when a well-known pragmatist said seizing control by force was a mistake and had caused great hardship.
Hamas hard-liners, however, still appear to have the upper hand.
In a five-page letter posted Sunday on a Web site affiliated with Hamas' rival, Fatah, former Hamas government spokesman Ghazi Hamad wrote that the takeover was a "serious strategic mistake that burdened the movement more than it can bear."
Hamad wrote that Gaza "became isolated, besieged, in a narrow strip" and that "people's suffering increased."
In an interview Sunday, Hamad declined to acknowledge the letter or reiterate some of the harshest phrases. However, he said that Gaza's situation was "terrible" and that Hamas should make another attempt to forge a joint government with Abbas. Hamad said he was expressing his personal views.
He said several Arab countries, led by Egypt, were trying to bring the sides together again. Egypt had played a key role in previous efforts to set up a coalition of Hamas and moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah, but a so-called unity government formed in the spring quickly broke down in fighting.
However, one of the group's most powerful figures, Mahmoud Zahar, told The Associated Press that Hamas can run Gaza without difficulty despite harsh economic sanctions, and he suggested that a failure of U.S.-led peace efforts would only strengthen his group further.
Public debate is rare in Hamas, a tightly organized movement that takes its directives from a Syrian-based leadership. It was not clear whether the current argument reflected a hardening of divisions, or was in part an attempt to put out feelers to Abbas.
After the fall of Gaza to Hamas in June, Abbas fired the Islamic movement from the government and set up a rival Cabinet of moderates in the West Bank. The split has opened the way for renewed peace efforts between Abbas and Israel, and the U.S. is to host a Mideast conference later this year.
Hamas, meanwhile, has become increasingly isolated, losing crucial support in the Arab world. Israel further tightened its restrictions on Gaza trade and movement, first imposed after a parliament election victory brought Hamas to power in March 2006.
Gaza's 1.4 million people can no longer leave the territory, only limited supplies are allowed in, exports are frozen and some 100,000 private sector jobs have been lost since June.
Abbas has said he would resume dialogue with Hamas only if the group apologizes for what he terms a "coup" and withdraws its forces from the security installations it seized in Gaza.
Hamas has declined to do so, but the head of the Hamas government in Gaza, Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh has recently urged a resumption of contacts with Abbas.
Zahar, the leading hard-liner, insisted in an interview Friday that Hamas doesn't need Abbas.
On the contrary, he said, the Palestinian president, elected in 2005, is politically weak and does not have a mandate to negotiate with Israel.
Asked whether Abbas should step down, Zahar said: "He should, he should, he should resign ... He is a very weak man, and his regime already failed. He should not go to any meeting with the Israelis and the others because he is not representing the majority (of Palestinians)."
Zahar said he is certain the U.S.-sponsored peace conference will fail, and suggested that this would weaken Abbas further. "He met many times (with Israeli leaders), and what will be the end result on the popular level if he came back with a big zero?" Zahar asked rhetorically.
In contrast, Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat of Fatah said last week that success of the conference would eliminate public support for Hamas.
Recent polls suggest that Hamas' popularity has dropped slightly since the June takeover, but it appears to be firmly in control of Gaza, despite occasional skirmishes between Hamas police and gunmen from local clans or the small Islamic Jihad group.
Zahar said that despite the cash crunch, the Hamas government has managed to pay stipends to the neediest and salaries to thousands of Hamas loyalists cut from the public payroll by the West Bank government.
"Up to this moment, we have salary for people who are in need for at least, at least one year, if we received no dollar after that," Zahar said, without explaining how money is coming in.
However, Alaa al-Araj, an economic adviser to Haniyeh, acknowledged that the economic situation is getting worse. Some two-thirds of Gazans are already considered poor, living on less than $2 a day, according to the United Nations.
"I think if it continues for many months, it will continue with serious hardship for the citizen," said al-Araj, a contractor whose business is paralyzed because of a freeze on cement imports.
"There is a difference between living with the minimal requirements and suffering daily and depending on aid from others, in a way that strips a person of much of his pride," he said.
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