CAIR Thankful Moslem Families from Tennessee and Arizona Evacuated from Gaza by U.S. State Department

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) announced on Thursday that two Islamic families, one from Tennessee and the other from Arizona, have at last been evacuated from the Gaza Strip thanks to action by the U.S. Department of State.

The two families united with two busloads full of American citizens who had been prevented from leaving the Gaza Strip by Israeli military authorities. Israel has put a lock down on the Gaza border since the uprising of the militant, terrorist-class Hamas faction of Palestine at the end of June.

A six-year-old child, a member of the Tennessee family, needed to be hospitalized soon after the evacuation. His illness had been one of the reasons that CAIR earlier this month had contacted Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to see to it that all Americans stranded in Gaza were evacuated.

Hamas staged a military uprising in the Gaza Strip ousted now-rival faction Fatah earlier in the summer, taking control of the Gaza Strip in one week. The Fatah faction has regrouped in the West Bank of Palestine, where it has always been much stronger and where Israel maintains a stronger military presence.

Fatah favors a permanent peace treaty with Israel in exchange for autonomy for Palestine. Hamas is seen as a terrorist organization by the West, and refuses to acknowledge Israel diplomatically. Hamas wants the nation of Israel dissolved.

Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas, himself a member of Fatah, has denounced the Hamas "government" formed from the splintered remains of the one-time coalition government, which lasted for three months before the uprising took place.

Israel and the West recognize Abbas' now-all-Fatah government, while seeking to geographically and economically isolate Hamas.

Khaled Mashaal, Hamas' most influential political leader, has threatened a third violent Palestinian uprising, or intifada, if Israel doesn't give up its control of the West Bank.