Gaza City: In the grubby little zoo outside Gaza City, a man gave a thumbs up to a lion in a cage.
"Welcome back," he said, as his children beamed at the animal.
Sabrina had been snatched from her cage two years earlier, and the young cub had become a symbol of the lawlessness that characterised the Gaza Strip.
But last month, Hamas forces freed Sabrina from a notorious criminal gang. To many Gazans, Sabrina's release is a vivid example of how security has improved since Hamas routed Fatah forces to take control of the Gaza Strip.
In the days following the mid-June takeover, Hamas officials sent out their civil army, known as the Executive Force, to seemingly every street corner. Fatah officials and security forces loyal to that faction, meanwhile, disappeared from the streets.
Palestinian National Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, of Fatah, dismissed the Hamas government, and appointed and emergency Cabinet.
In Gaza, the Hamas forces, now act as de facto police officers and traffic wardens. After the takeover, they freed hostages held by other factions. They disarmed other groups and banned celebratory gunfire at weddings and wearing masks in public.
"Gaza, in the last year and a half, was so messed up, such a miserable place," said Raji Sourani, the director of the independent Palestinian Centre for Human Rights in Gaza. Now, "there are no more blocks, checkpoints or firing even at weddings anymore."
But the judicial system is in tatters and Israel has shut down its borders with Gaza, blocking most goods and people except for limited humanitarian aid. The boycott has devastated the already frail and aid-dependent Gaza economy.
"Before, there were budgets and money but without security," said Hatam Hamood, 34, a government worker in Gaza. "Now there is security but there is no money."
Sourani, whose organisation monitors rule of law in Gaza, said that, so far, there had not been a major erosion of human rights except for a few cases of the Executive Force beating up suspects. But he worried that the future might bring "the Iraqisation of Gaza." Without a functioning judicial system or economy, Gaza could again become the lawless place of years past, he warned. "I want to see security within the context of rule of law," said Sourani. "It's either the rule of law or the rule of the jungle."
Adeeb, a tall, muscular man wearing black combat pants and a black shirt, monitored traffic on a radio, dispatching his lieutenants to various parts of the city of 1.5 million people.
According to Adeeb, Hamas wants law, not jungle, in the Gaza strip. He offered the obvious example: "The lion," he said. "We returned it to the zoo."
