GAZA CITY — I can assure the Palestinian president that his house in Gaza is just as he left it. There are a few dishes in the sink but the china is not chipped and it appears the armed Hamas gunmen now arranging the toss cushions have also dusted.

Hamas says it is "protecting" the house out of respect for an elected head of state. That they are roaming around admiring trinkets is glaring evidence of how the balance of power has shifted so dramatically here.

An armed Hamas guard took us around Mahmoud Abbas' residence in what felt like an odd real estate tour for a prospective buyer. Our guide did not say much. He scoffed at the photograph of Abbas signing the Oslo peace accords on the lawn of the White House. He chuckled at the one next to it of Abbas shaking the hand of former U.S. president Bill Clinton.

The only time our guide spoke was when he sat on one of Abbas' lounge room chairs and pointed at the big screen television. 'Cinema!' he said, shaking his head. (The only three movie theatres in the Gaza Strip closed at the beginning of the intifada in 1987 and never re-opened).

It is Hamas fighters like those sleeping near his garden that Mahmoud Abbas has referred to as "murderous terrorists" whom with their leadership are accused of mounting a coup to create their own "empire of darkness" in Gaza.

The presidential compound was the last symbol of Fatah's power in Gaza to fall to Hamas - the punctuation on days of factional bloodletting. From all accounts there wasn't much of a fight even though it was the one bastion Mahmoud Abbas ordered presidential guards to defend. Fatah's security forces were fairly routed by then. Posts were abandoned, morgues were overflowing and surviving Fatah foot soldiers went into hiding.

The United States spent millions to arm and train Fatah forces yet it seemed money could not buy motivation. Hamas fighters were better trained, better disciplined and not afraid.

In the streets, Hamas gunmen in their new uniforms and new guns confiscated from Fatah (courtesy of the U.S.) are in total control of Gaza and they seem surprised by their newfound power. They roll around town in Jeep Cherokees and Toyota pick-ups... the vehicles that used to belong to the Fatah-dominated Palestinian security forces.

Understand that the animosity between Hamas and Fatah -- that shocked many Palestinians -- can be traced to what happened here in the 1990s. Feeling a surge of empowerment that came with the Oslo accords, Fatah strongmen pursued a violent campaign against Hamas leaders and activists to temper the group's increasingly brutal tactics of resistance against Israel.

That Fatah security czars like Mohammed Dahlan, a slick and purportedly ruthless commander, would in his career also become involved in secret negotiations with Israel earned him the worst label possible here: Collaborator.

It is why Dahlan's Gaza villa is, to say the least, stripped bare by looters. Absolutely picked clean of windows, plumbing, fixtures, even floor tiles. The main 'level' is now an open air dirt pit because hard-working looters are digging for any underground piping too. When we asked why they were pillaging one man replied that it wasn't stealing... it was taking back.

At the Preventive Security headquarters -- where Hamas members say they were detained and tortured -- gunmen now rifle through sensitive and supposedly secret papers left behind. Actual intelligence reports on Hamas members, Hamas politicians are now strewn across the barren courtyard. The green Hamas flag flies prominently from the top of the building's radio tower.

There are revenge attacks, purported "death lists" and manhunts underway for the "most wanted." I have heard stories -- maybe myth, maybe true -- of families being forced to turn on each other. As one tale goes, a Fatah policeman was lead by his Hamas fighter brother into an ambush. He was shot in the legs (kneecapped as they say).

When the wounded man asked his brother how he could let that happen he said it was actually a compromise... that Hamas wanted to do much worse. I cannot confirm whether that story is true but the rage around the execution of Samieh Madhoun seems indisputable. A Fatah militant leader who once bragged of how many Hamas members he had killed, Madhoun was captured, dragged, beaten and shot in a cloud of dirt on the street. A crowd celebrated around his corpse and the video was broadcast on Hamas' television station. Hatred runs very deep and people don't easily forget.

Gaza sealed to foreign aid, supplies running low

Post-revolutionary Gaza is also one of streets swept clean, of repairs underway and Hamas members in glowing vests directing traffic (now called 'Members of the Public Order'). Public order crews supervise high school examinations, deal with urgent civil matters and prevent merchants from raising prices. Hamas supporters walk freely hailing the return of law and order, while Fatah loyalists lay low and in some cases run for their lives.

Hamas wants the world to believe it has made Gaza a better place yet it has no control over its firmly sealed borders, there is no foreign aid, its rulers are rejected by Europe and the West and food supplies are running dangerously low.

Aid money will begin to flow to Palestinians in the West Bank who need do nothing more than listen to Mahmoud Abbas and his promises of better days to come. There will be summits, commitments, maybe even peace talks.

But not for the 1.5 million Palestinians in what some have dubbed 'Hamastan.' Gaza will get nothing. Even the Arab countries who supported Hamas when it won democratic elections last year (a vote even Canadian election monitors deemed fair) have expressed their dismay at how much Palestinian blood has been spilled.

That is not to say the West -- especially the United States -- is taking a sensible approach. Mahmoud Abbas cannot accept money that will be spent only in the West Bank if he is to be seen as president of all Palestinians. A 'West Bank first' strategy will only further radicalize Gaza.

Abbas is also looking for concessions from Israel, which has a far greater influence on daily life in the West Bank than it does in Gaza. As Robert Malley and Aaron David Miller of International Crisis Group note, it may prove a challenge for Abbas to get Israeli restrictions eased when the vast majority of attacks on Israel have come from the West Bank (and ironically. it is the Fatah-affiliated Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades often claiming responsibility).

There is no "power parallel", if I can call it that -- support for Fatah in the West Bank cannot compare to Hamas' influence in Gaza. While Hamas is not as active in the West Bank (because of the threat of arrest by Israel) it still wields political clout. There is the threat that Hamas might strategically resume attacks on Israel knowing a military response and diplomatic chill for Abbas will follow.

So while Gaza now appears safe from gun battles and grenades, the situation for most here stands to grow much worse. People have no faith in democracy, feel abandoned by the West and worry their own president is happy to cut them loose. The future of Hamastan is likely to be as troubled as its past. Yet I can assure the Palestinian president his flower beds are flourishing.