Hamas completes conquest of Gaza Strip: Will convert Mahmoud Abbas’ Presidential compound into mosque for victory prayer Friday

DEBKAfile Intelligence

June 15, 2007

This will symbolize the Islamist character of the national Palestinian entity supplanting the defeated Palestinian Authority. At least 16 died in the fighting Thursday, some 90 in five days.

Thursday morning, the Hamas Executive Force occupied two Fatah strongholds: the Preventive Security HQ and the National Security compound, dragging personnel out and shooting some on the spot. Half-naked Fatah prisoners were paraded in the streets. Masked Hamas fighters seized their US-made and Israeli equipment and vehicle number plates and rifled intelligence files, in the fortified building constructed with US military aid funds after hoisting a green Hamas flag.

Read DEBKAfile’s Exclusive Log of the five-day Hamas blitz which brought about the downfall of Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah-dominated forces in the Gaza Strip.