> Hamas and Fatah supporters clash at Gaza university
>
> http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/04/01/africa/01mideast.php
>
>
> Published April 1,2008
> GAZA: Hamas police and supporters on Monday beat a number of professors and
> students of Al Azhar University, the last bastion of Fatah in Gaza, wounding
> several, witnesses said. Hamas denied it had acted improperly and said the
> police restored order.The students and staff were protesting a rally that
> Hamas insisted on holding inside the university campus in memory of Sheikh
> Ahmed Yassin, the founder of the militant Islamic group who was killed in an
> Israeli air strike in March 2004.
>
> Al Azhar University has continued to operate, despite having been raided
> five times since Hamas routed rival Fatah forces and took control of Gaza
> last June.
>
> Before dawn on Monday, Hamas activists entered the compound and set up
> equipment for the rally, hanging pictures of Hamas leaders and Hamas flags.
> When members of the academic staff protested outside, Hamas police beat them
> with clubs, said Ayman Shaheen, a professor of political science. Shaheen
> said he was hit twice.
>
> "All they know is the language of force," Shaheen said of Hamas. "We try to
> talk to them but they don't listen."
>
> A number of female students were then attacked at the rally by participants
> who mostly came from outside, many armed with clubs, witnesses said. Tahrir
> Abu Latifa, 19, a student of commerce, was taken to Gaza's main Al Shifa
> Hospital unconscious but was able to leave a few hours later.
>
> "I was removing a poster that said 'Hamas forces will win over Al Azhar,'"
> she said, "then men surrounded me and hit me on my head and all over my
> body."
>
> Rana Redwan, a student of psychology, said she received a blow to the head
> after she entered the rally and a speaker on the podium called her "impure."
> Witnesses said they saw her tearing a Hamas flag.
>
> Another woman, Riham Abu Arrus, was struck in the leg with an ax, according
> to friends who accompanied her to hospital. Abu Arrus was first taken to
> Gaza's main Al Shifa hospital, which is now under Hamas control, but was
> refused immediate treatment, the friends said. Most of the wounded were
> treated at the private Ahli Arab Hospital.
>
> The women who were wounded were all wearing colorful headscarves, in
> deference to Islamic rules of modesty, but not the more conservative uniform
> worn by female students at the nearby Islamic University that is run by
> Hamas.
>
> Ehab al-Ghsein, a spokesman for the Hamas-run Interior Ministry in Gaza,
> said the police intervened when the rally threatened to become unruly. "The
> issue is between the administration of the university and the Islamic bloc,"
> he said, referring to a small group of Al Azhar students who support Hamas.
>
> Sharif Abu Shamala, 24, who heads the university's Islamic bloc, said that
> the women had provoked the audience by shredding a Hamas flag. In such cases
> "it is hard to control what happens," he said.
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