The suffering from the stand-off in fractured Palestine is a disgrace, says Saleh Al-Naami She was clearly tense and agitated as she hung up the phone. The employee at the Palestinian Ministry of Education had informed her that the announcement of the high school matriculation exam results had been delayed once again. Nahla Al-Naimat, 39, was eager to learn the score of her eldest son, Adham, and says this was the seventh time the exam results had been delayed. The situation of Al-Naimat, who lives in the central region of the Gaza Strip, is the same for thousands of other parents who have been waiting anxiously for almost a month to know their children's scores. Yet due to the conflict between the acting government led by Salam Fayyad in Ramallah and the dismissed government of Ismail Haniyeh which is running affairs in Gaza, the announcement of these results has been delayed, wracking the nerves of students and parents alike. The Fayyad government has threatened not to recognise the results of exams held in the Gaza Strip as they have not been authorised by the Ministry of Education in the Ramallah government. This position was taken on the basis of the Haniyeh government not having the right to approve the results because it is an "illegitimate" government. Following wide-scale protests by students, parents and non-governmental institutions, however, it was finally decided that the results would be announced on 5 August. This is only one example of the suffering that Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have undergone due to the conflict between the governments of Fayyad and Haniyeh. This conflict has resulted in the paralysis of the health sector. Each of the two governments has appointed a director for the major hospitals in the Gaza Strip. At Dar Al-Shifaa Hospital, Gaza's largest, Hassan Khalaf was appointed by the Haniyeh government as director, and Hezaa Abed by the Ramallah government. Each is present in the same office, which has resulted in the hospital offering extremely poor services to the public. For example, Mohamed Abu Shadi, 55, is a heart patient who has been waiting to obtain a medical report on his health status from the hospital so that he can have open heart surgery conducted abroad. He was angered when the receptionist at the hospital in Gaza informed him that he could not obtain the report because each of the two directors claimed that he was the one authorised to sign it. Another image of the conflict between the Ramallah and Gaza governments -- the Gaza government insists on the weekend being Thursday and Friday, while the Fayyad government insists that it be Friday and Saturday. The administration of Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Hospital, which serves the central region of the Gaza Strip, has reached a creative solution to solving this problem by which each department in the hospital chooses the two days that suit its doctors and nurses. All of the departments have chosen Thursday and Friday, as decided by the Haniyeh government, with the exception of the surgery department, which has chosen Friday and Saturday. Yet the conflict has reached the limits of absurdity with regard to the paying of fees for treatment and examinations in hospitals. The Ramallah government has issued an order for fees not to be collected for examinations, treatment, and other health services, so that they do not go into the Haniyeh government's treasury. Yet the other government has asked patients to pay fees, albeit with flexibility. Al-Ahram Weekly has learnt that the instructions issued to the employees responsible for levying the fees have stressed that they are not to incite problems with patients, who are requested to pay, but can refuse. Another result of the conflict between the Ramallah and Gaza governments is fear that Palestinians in the Gaza Strip will not be able to perform the pilgrimage to Mecca this year. Each of the two governments has an agency for pilgrimage, and each is conducting a lottery to select those who will be allowed to undertake the journey. The Haniyeh government holds that pilgrims must travel through the Rafah crossing, which is currently closed, while the Fayyad government insists that they must travel through one of the other land crossings. Jamal Bawateneh, the minister of Religious Endowments in the Fayyad government, told the Weekly that his ministry is the only authorised agency dealing with pilgrimage issues. The Haniyeh government has accused it of having threatened travel and pilgrimage agencies in the Gaza Strip in order to prevent them from sending their lists of those registered for pilgrimage to the Ramallah Ministry of Religious Endowments, which will conduct the lottery to select this year's pilgrims. Bawateneh contends that this measure will prevent the Gaza populace from performing the pilgrimage. On the other hand, the Haniyeh government says that its ability to offer services to pilgrims this year will be very limited, as the Fayyad government has taken over the funds of its pilgrimage agency. Fadiya Abu Samha, 42, who had registered for the pilgrimage, told the Weekly that she is deeply worried because it is not clear to her how she can perform the pilgrimage given the conflict between the two governments. She wants the issue of pilgrimage to be removed from the political differences between the two sides. Due to the conflict between the two governments, it is possible for Palestinians in the Gaza Strip to drive their cars without licences. The Ramallah government has issued instructions to close all Palestinian National Authority licence offices in the Gaza Strip, and has warned its employees not to continue working. While guaranteeing their rights, it has threatened those who go to work with "breaking the law and the legal and administrative measures of the government," in orders issued by the Ministry of Transportation in the Fayyad government. Because these employees receive their salaries from the Fayyad government, they have obeyed the order, a fact that has led the Haniyeh government to consider the possibility of temporarily appointing volunteers to work in place of them. Each of the two governments fails to acknowledge the legitimacy of the other's security agencies. The Haniyeh government considers the security agencies of the Fayyad government, "gangs seeking to harm Hamas activists in the West Bank." For its part, the Fayyad government considers the security agencies of the Haniyeh government "illegitimate" forces that pursue Fatah activists in the Gaza Strip. Matters became more complicated still when Israeli media recently revealed that the Fayyad government security agencies were collaborating with Israeli security agencies to pursue Palestinian resistance cells active in the West Bank. As a result, their members were arrested and the military operations they intended to conduct against occupation targets were thwarted. Faisal Abu Shahla, head of the Oversight Committee in the Palestinian Legislative Council and one of the top leaders of the Fatah movement in the Gaza Strip, holds the Hamas movement alone responsible for the suffering that has resulted from the conflict between the Gaza and Ramallah governments. Abu Shahla told the Weekly that the Fayyad government is the legitimate one and that it is its prerogative to make decisions as it sees fit on everything from the appointment of hospital directors to determining weekends and other issues. "The Hamas movement has only complicated matters. They have only themselves to blame." Raji Al-Sourani, a lawyer and director of the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, one of the largest and most important human rights organisations in Palestine, believes that President Abu Mazen holds a large degree of responsibility for the suffering people are enduring due to the conflict between the two governments. Al-Sourani told the Weekly he disapproved of Abu Mazen and the Fayyad government issuing decisions merely to undermine the Haniyeh government. "Why did the Fayyad government order its police not to report to their units and threaten those undertaking their duties with loss of pay? They are destroying the judiciary," said Al-Sourani. He pointed to the positive results produced by Hamas's control over the Gaza Strip. "As a man of law and one in charge of a human rights organisation that has taken on the responsibility of dealing with the lack of security, I am certain that the security situation in the Gaza Strip has not been better than it is now," Al-Sourani asserted.
