Really?

Mr. [Mahmoud] Zahar, who has a tougher reputation and is more senior in Hamas, also agreed, but said praying outdoors violated religious laws.

Steve Erlanger, reporting for the New York Times wrote that. Good to know.

But check this:-

Cairo - Scholars of al-Azhar, Egypt's top religious authority, said a ban imposed by the Palestinian radical group Hamas on public prayers in Gaza was not Islamic, reports said Friday.

And he also wrote this in that same report:-

Nearly three months after Hamas conquered the teeming streets of Gaza, a wary calm has taken hold. People stroll at all hours, car theft has practically stopped, even armed police officers are rarely seen.

After 18 months in which gun battles between Hamas and Fatah forces defined street life, Hamas has made it illegal to carry weapons in public or to fire them, even at weddings or funerals.

Calm? Illegal to carry weapons?

Oh, sorry. Erlanger meant only vis a vis other Arabs.

Shooting at Jews, rocketing them, mortaring them, etc., that okay.

Reporting all the news there Steve?

Try this:

Sep 7, 2007, 10:57 GMT

Gaza City - The Fatah party of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas accused the rival Hamas movement Friday of having abducted and executed a Fatah member in the central Gaza Strip.

Palestinian ambulance services said they found the body of 24 year-old Tarazan Dughmush at the Gaza beach near the Nusseirat refugee camp. He had been snatched by masked gunmen along with his cousin Ibrahim Dughmush the previous night.

Palestinian medical sources said Tarazan Dughmush appeared to have been killed instantly by a single bullet in the head fired at close range. His cousin was also badly injured.

Or this:-

Sept. 4 - A Palestinian was shot dead Wednesday in a Hamas stronghold in Gaza City, and hospital officials said he was a member of a Hamas security force, but the Islamic group later denied he belonged to the force.

The circumstances of the shooting in the Zeitoun neighborhood were not immediately clear.

The shooting came almost two months after Hamas wrested control of the Gaza Strip in five days of brutal fighting. Since then, tensions have been high in Gaza between Hamas and the rival Fatah...

Steve and Foreign News Editor of the esteemed NYTimes, are we truly getting the news in your reporting and your paper?