June 14th will be etched on the memory of Fatah officials as a day of humiliation and pain when, as one of them put it, their Palestinian brethren in Hamas showed them less mercy than Israel.
There was an overwhelming sense of depression and shock as Fatah watched Hamas gunmen take over Gaza security headquarters, kill their leaders, and loot their homes and offices.
Masked Palestinian Hamas members sit at the desk of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas inside Abbas' personal office after it was taken over by Hamas today. Image: Getty Images.
"What [late President Yasser] Arafat has built in the past 20 years, Hamas has destroyed in one year. It's sad, our national liberation dream of a state in the West Bank and Gaza is over," Raeda, a member of the secular Fatah movement said.
Fatah spokesman Jamas Nazzal described the ruthless routing of Fatah and their supporters as "a black day in the history of Palestine and a great setback to the political Islam and Islamist groups in the entire world".
June 14th was effectively the day Gaza became an independent entity under Hamas.
For Hamas, as it announced jubilantly it was taking over the Gaza Strip, it was the "purification of Gaza from the traitor's group", according to their satellite television al-Aqsa.
Images showed Fatah security forces, their hands raised in the air in surrender while Hamas gunmen shot at their feet. Hamas gunmen paraded captured Fatah vehicles and seized weapons, while civilians plundered the Fatah-dominated security forces headquarters, removing satellite dishes and even doors.
Senior Fatah official
Amid Fatah's depression, there was self-examination too and a recognition of past miscalculations by their leadership. It was not the first defeat for Fatah by Hamas, though certainly the most humiliating and far-reaching.
Fatah, which controlled the Palestine Liberation Organisation in exile since 1965 and the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Gaza, was beaten by its Islamist rival in January 2006 elections.
Hamas has headed two governments since that parliamentary victory, while Fatah has seemed only too often torn by divisions and corruption.
As the extent of Hamas's victory emerged, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah declared a state of emergency and finally did what many of his followers had long been urging him to do: he fired Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh.
But as Haniyeh in Gaza defied the presidential orders and jubilant Hamas tightened control over Gaza, many Fatah officials said Abbas's move came too late.
Voicing disenchantment, many Fatah officials blamed him for allowing Hamas to marginalise him and smuggle enough weapons and money into Gaza Strip to stage what is seen by Fatah as a coup.
Thousands of Palestinian supporters of Hamas march in the streets of Gaza city today. Image: AP.
And then there was the military reality. The Western-backed and trained Palestinian security forces under Fatah were led by either weak, old, or corrupt chiefs. Many had gone without salaries since Hamas formed a government in March 2006.
Palestinian security officials said it had taken months of difficult negotiations to get Israel to allow weapons and ammunition through to the official security forces. And even though they finally became better armed, they still could not match Hamas's firepower, much of whose weapons were bought with funding from Iran and donations by rich Muslims in the Arab world.
"It wasn't an equal war with Hamas. They had sophisticated arms, a centralised leadership and a fat purse," a senior Fatah official in Gaza said.
"What did we have? Divisions. Only 20 per cent of Fatah fought Hamas, security forces weakened by Israel and hungry, people who haven't been paid salaries since March 2006, and leaderless," this official said.
Fatah officials said Palestinian security forces had suffered the consequences of the 2000 intifadawhen Israel destroyed their infrastructure and arrested Fatah leaders.
The credibility, too, of the splintered Fatah movement had declined in the eyes of the people as old guard leaders refused to step down and give the younger generation a role in making decisions.
Fatah officials had pressed Abbas to fire the Hamas government to keep alive their national dream of establishing statehood, a move they believe is not on Hamas' agenda.
When Abbas finally made the move yesterday it all seemed a bit too late. Abbas and members of Fatah's old and young guard met today in the Muqata, the battle-ravaged compound where the Arafat defied Israel during a long siege of his compound in 2002.
Under Arafat, Fatah was dominant and united, while Hamas was on the margins. "Abu Ammar (Arafat) must be turning in his grave. He would have never allowed this to happen," a Fatah gunman said.