“Moderate” Palestinians are finding themselves on the wrong end of their own barrels. Hamas has seized thousands of Fatah and Palestinian security forces M-16 and Kalashnikov assault rifles, pistols and ammunition in the Gaza Strip during five days of fighting there. The Islamic terrorist group has waged all-out war on its more moderate Fatah rivals in recent days, exploding security buildings, shooting police and sending Fatah officials and security forces fleeing. This has resulted in the theft of tons of weapons and equipment, much of which was originally supplied by the United States through Egypt and Jordan in a plan to bolster Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah movement and to smother Hamas’s threat of violence.

The United States and Israel backed a plan earlier this year that put large numbers of high-powered arms in the hands of Abbas supporters in a pick-your-poison deal. Even last year, Israel was supplying weapons to the Palestinians via Jordan. Israel and the U.S. hoped that by providing bigger guns to Abbas (who is anything but moderate toward the U.S.), Hamas, the greater of the two evils, would be kept in check. Instead, Hamas triggermen now scope their targets with the very weapons meant to deter their bloody brand of Islamic violence.

Despite controlling some 40,000 security force and militia members in the Strip, a lack of clear orders and coordinated counterattacks from Abbas has left Fatah fractured, smashed and at the meager mercy of Hamas gunmen, who have dragged men into the street and executed them—in front of their wives and children in some cases, according to the Associated Press.

In the process, Hamas, which is considered a terrorist group by the U.S., the European Union and Israel, has rounded up more than just victims. Militants have seized armored vehicles, trucks, communications equipment, grenades, mortars and other equipment from smashed and looted security compounds, adding thousands of arms to their existing cache of assault rifles, bombs, rocket-propelled grenades and other weapons. The stolen armaments, particularly the assault rifles, appear on photographs posted to several websites linked to Hamas, according to the Jerusalem Post. Some online periodicals reporting on the conflict show ironically bitter images of masked Hamas militants flaunting M-series Colt rifles, which are made in Connecticut.

Hamas is violently anti-American and does not recognize Israel’s right to life as a nation.

For more information on the Palestinian conflict and its repercussions for the Middle East, read “Iran’s Victory in the Gaza Strip,” or request our free booklet Jerusalem in Prophecy.