Hamas obliges all Gazan women to wear headscarves

The Palestinian Islamist Hamas rulers of the Gaza Strip have enacted a new law obliging all women to cover their hair with the Muslim hijab. Sunday, July 26, “modesty patrols” were out on the streets and beaches of the Gaza Strip enforcing the new edict. They also inspected cars to ascertain that unmarried couples were not alone together. Female attorneys were earlier ordered to wear dresses in court.
The Gaza Strip’s slide into sharia law emphasizes its separation from the West Bank where secular modes are tolerated, further distancing the extremist Hamas from Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah which rules the West Bank.
It coincides with a British parliamentary group’s advice to Gordon Brown’s government to seek ways of engaging Hamas “moderates.”