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Two Palestinian militants were killed in the Gaza Strip on Aug. 2 in clashes between gunmen from the Islamist movement Hamas and its smaller rival, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ). Hamas militants chased four PIJ members into a mosque, where they killed one of them, Nidal al-Daya, and wounded the others, a PIJ official said on condition of anonymity. A Fatah member, 37-year-old Salah Amudi, was killed in gunfire exchanges shortly afterward outside the mosque, witnesses and PIJ members said. The fighting came a day after a member of Hamas' paramilitary, the Executive Force, was killed in clashes with PIJ militants in Gaza City.
Even after being part of two different Cabinets since its January 2006 electoral victory, until it took over the Gaza Strip Hamas still behaved more like a protest movement than an actual government because the security forces were largely under the control of Fatah leader and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. This situation has drastically changed. Hamas is now forced to focus seriously on governance, with the provision of security in the lawless Gaza Strip as the first order of business.
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