War between brothers

摘要

By the end of this week, the Islamists of Hamas will have either destroyed the secular-minded Fatah in the Gaza Strip or shown that they can. The relative quiet after a deadly burst of violence between the rival Palestinian parties in May was broken by a series of tit-for-tat killings that quickly got out of hand. After troops from the presidential guard of Fatah's Mah-moud Abbas, the Palestinian president, rocketed the house of Hamas's Ismail Ha-niyeh, the prime minister, the Islamist party launched a full-scale attack. As The Economist went to press, Hamas troops had taken control of most of the Gaza Strip and had chased Fatah forces out of their bases, while several top Fatah commanders had either fled Gaza or had been killed.