In cities like Jenin -- islands in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, cut off by Israeli forces, that Mr. Arafat seldom visits -- his power has been curtailed, Dr. Shikaki said.
Campaigns to enforce the Muslim headscarf and other forms of "modest dress," prevent women from riding on the back of motorcycles, ban "improper" literature and similar measures suggest a creeping fundamentalism of Hamas rule in a Gaza Strip cut off from the outside world.
Rafah is the Gaza of Gaza — isolated, poor and, for years, all but cut off from the rest of the coastal strip during the era of Israeli settlements here, which ended in 2005.
Egypt began sponsoring acts of violence against Israel from the Gaza Strip and cut off shipping through the Strait of Tīrān.
Today Gaza is nearly cut off to visitors, and residents can get in and out only sporadically, via Egypt.
In a welcome early response to this American suggestion, Israel agreed to dismantle the military checkpoints that had briefly cut Gaza in two.
The army said it had reversed its decision, made after a mortar attack on a Jewish settlement on Friday, to cut Gaza into two sections because of "increasing humanitarian cases and requests for passage between the two parts".
On Sunday, the fighting started before dawn in the Sheikh Ajleen neighborhood, in the southwestern edge of Gaza City, with Israeli troops moving north from Netzarim, where they had earlier cut the Gaza Strip in two.
