GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — Bearded Hamas activists on Friday delivered an envelope with five crisp $100 bills to a veiled woman whose house was damaged during Israel's invasion of Gaza, the first of promised relief payments by the militant group.
In another part of the territory, a bulldozer cleared rubble and filled in a bomb crater where a week before a top Hamas leader had been killed in an Israeli air strike.
Since a truce took hold this week, ending Israel's three-week onslaught, Gaza's Hamas rulers have declared victory and gone out of their way to show they are in control.
They have pledged $52 million of the group's funds to help repair lives, the money divvied up by category. The veiled woman received emergency relief money for her two-story home in the northern town of Beit Lahiya.
Hamas, which is believed to be funded by donations from the Muslim world and Iran, said the emergency relief would include $1,300 for a death in the family, $650 for an injury, $5,200 for a destroyed house and $2,600 for a damaged house.
More than 4,000 houses were destroyed and about 20,000 damaged, according to independent estimates.
"We are in control and we are the winner," Hamas legislator Mushir al-Masri declared this week, after attending the funeral of four Hamas gunmen.
Nothing was accomplished by Israel. They pulled out so that our HNIC would not be mad. They should have killed every single arab in Gaza.
10 years ago
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