Fatah members in the Gaza Strip are afraid to speak openly. When they ruled Gaza, some held high-level positions in the security apparatuses. Then came Hamas’ coup in 2007. Those who were not able to flee from the Gaza Strip to the West Bank were subsequently subject to severe restrictions and were followed constantly. From Hamas’ point of view, members of Fatah are not to be trusted even in the present reality of a unity government and reconciliation. Thus, Fatah members are under constant suspicion.

With the beginning of Operation Protective Edge, Fatah members in Gaza were forced to live under “house arrest.” No one remembered, or wanted to remember, that a reconciliation agreement with Hamas had been signed and a unity government had been formed only a few weeks earlier. The hatred between the two organizations was so abysmal that even when the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) pounded the Gaza Strip, Hamas members had no mercy on Fatah operatives.

The great tension that exists between Hamas and Fatah (tension that has recently spilled into the West Bank as well) can be understood mainly in the context of the Hamas movement's situation in the days after Operation Protective Edge. There is a tremendous gap between the declarations of the movement’s leadership regarding a great victory over Israel, and the perception of most of the Palestinian public in Gaza regarding the war’s end results. While Hamas employees in the civil service did receive their wages, many sections of Gaza, in the north and south, have been completely ruined. Gaza Strip residents hear constantly about rebuilding and assistance and an end to the stifling blockade, but on the ground nothing has changed. The prevailing mood is that the situation in the future will be much the same as in the past.

The minute after the cease-fire was proclaimed on Aug. 26, Gaza mostly disappeared from the headlines. The interest of the global media in Gaza declined significantly, and the residents returned to their day-to-day, existential struggle for survival.