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Journey into the Gunrunning World of Gaza

(Scoop-New Zealand) Yasser Abu Moailek - The Hasanein family business is gunrunning. M. Hasanein, 27, lives with his seven brothers and father in the Montar district, the highest location in the Gaza Strip overlooking all of Gaza City and the eastern borders with Israel. The Palestinian police cannot enter Montar, said M.: "They know their limits. We are far more armed than they ever can be." At the Hasanein family home, weapons of all kinds and types lay around the place - AK47 assault rifles from Russia and China, M16 rifles from the U.S., and Heckler submachine guns from Germany. "With the coming of the PA, we talked to them and agreed to open a small factory to produce weapons," said J., the Hasaneins' patriarch. "We produced variations of the Uzi [Israeli submachine gun], and we repaired some AK47s that went haywire. We also produced rounds for small handguns," he said. J. explained that, after a while, some PA officials tried to muscle in on their lucrative business, but they retaliated by cutting off the supply of weapons to Palestinian security agencies. "Israeli tanks destroyed our [weapons] factory in 2001 during a night incursion. We could do nothing to stop them, for we know they were coming for this factory," M. told us. "Since then, we preferred smuggling to manufacturing."
2007-07-07 00:00:00
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