Nablus (West Bank): The student with a shaggy beard revealed his sympathies for Hamas in a whisper. This is the West Bank and despite protests over Israel's war in Gaza, the two main Palestinian movements remain deeply split.
"I joined Hamas in 1999 and enlisted in its armed wing in 2001," said the man in his 20s as he casts furtive glances around him at the An-Najah University campus in Nablus, the largest in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
He keeps a watchful eye, lest someone loyal to the Palestinian Authority of Western-backed president Mahmud Abbas should overhear his words.
Palestinians have been divided since the Islamist Hamas movement ousted forces loyal to Abbas and his secular Fatah faction from Gaza in June 2007.
The writ of the secular president has since been restricted to the West Bank while Hamas has run Gaza. Supporters of the losing party in each territory have had to stop displaying their loyalties.
As a result, Hamas activists in the West Bank have virtually gone underground, fearful of being detained by Abbas loyalists.
"At the university today, no one says that he is a Hamas member, but we get spotted by our appearance and behaviour," said the student. "There are even spies for the Palestinian intelligence among the students."
He says students suspected of Hamas sympathies face arbitrary arrest and unemployment.
"It's during exams that the Palestinian Authority arrests most of the students, to make them fail," he said.
