In Gaza, prisoners twice over

The Gaza government, led by Ismail Haniyeh, is also reducing the infrastructure for a civil society, including organizations that defend personal freedoms. Internal Security Service officers closed down six organizations in Gaza City and Rafah, including a women's health society and the Woman and Child Development Assn. Hamas has denounced United Nations summer camps that allow boys and girls to play together, and set up competing gender-segregated camps. Although it criticized an unknown armed group's attack on May 23 against a U.N. summer camp -- the attackers tied up the camp guard, vandalized buildings and left a note threatening U.N. officials, along with three bullets -- police prevented human rights groups from holding a sit-in the next day to protest the attack. That same day, the Interior Ministry prevented the Palestinian Independent Commission for Human Rights from holding a workshop about its annual human rights report.