Editor's note: Saturday marks one year since Hamas' defeat of Fatah in the fierce struggle for control of Gaza. CNN correspondent Ben Wedeman has been covering the region for over 15 years. He reports from Gaza on daily life and reality over the past year in this fractious land.



CNN's Ben Wedeman reports on the past year in Gaza, where people are safer but out of food, gas, and patience.



GAZA CITY, Gaza (CNN)  -- "If you take pictures, I'll kill you! I'll kill you!" screamed a masked Fatah gunman, pointing his AK-47 assault rifle at my cameraman, Joe Duran.



"Calm down! Calm down!" I shouted back at him, turning to Joe to tell him to put the camera down.



Joe and I had ducked into a fruit and vegetable shop in Gaza City. We had been covering the funeral of a Fatah gunman killed in a clash with Hamas rivals when our third gunbattle of the day had broken out.



The gunman left, much to everyone's relief, and I put my small video camera on the floor and pressed the button to record the constant roar of machine gun fire, which went on for more than half an hour.



Earlier in the day, Joe and I were on a street corner videotaping Hamas militiamen when a jeep full of Fatah irregulars opened fire, just down the street from an elementary school.



As guns blazed, schoolchildren ran for cover.



I watched as shopkeeper Khadar Aliyan slammed shut the doors of his grocery store, the expression on his face one of fear and utter exasperation.



"I'm going home," he told me. "I'm afraid. We're done for. It's never been this bad."



It was violence like this, which we witnessed on December 2006, that reached a climax in the second week of June 2007.



When it ended on June 14, 2007, with Hamas roundly defeating Fatah, Gaza went quiet.



And quiet -- relative quiet, that is -- has been Hamas' biggest accomplishment since. No longer do you worry about being kidnapped. Gunbattles, though they can happen, are much less common.



After last June's takeover (or coup d'etat, as Fatah supporters call it), Hamas quickly imposed law and order, tried to reacquaint Gaza's drivers with long-forgotten traffic regulations, launched a municipal cleanup campaign, and forced the release of kidnapped BBC journalist Alan Johnston, who had been held in captivity for almost six months.



Chaos-weary Gazans applauded all of these initiatives. But the honeymoon ended quickly as reality sank in.



Since Hamas won parliamentary elections in January 2006, and even more so since last year's takeover, Israel has tightened its siege of Gaza.



Israel has restricted supplies of gasoline, diesel and electricity to Gaza, limited the amount of food and other goods entering the strip, and made it virtually impossible for manufacturers and farmers in Gaza to export anything to the outside world.



Israeli officials say these measures are intended to pressure Hamas, which is on the U.S. government list of terrorist groups, to stop its members and other factions from firing mortars and rockets into Israel. Israel Defense Forces reports that 1,500 Qassam rockets were fired into Israel from Gaza in 2007, and 2,383 in the past six years.



As a result, almost all of Gaza's factories have shut down and thousands of workers have lost their jobs.



Between 70 and 80 percent of the population is dependent on food supplied by the United Nations Refugee Works Agency, set up after more than 700,000 Palestinians became refugees after the war that resulted in Israel's creation in 1948.



Life in Gaza, never easy, in the last year has become a grinding daily struggle to make ends meet.



For the vast majority of Gazans, it means they must spend much of their time trying to secure basic commodities. Such as cooking gas, which comes from Israel.



In the past, when supplies were plentiful, it was sold from the back of trucks and donkey carts. Not
Although it is safer for Gazans, what are they in desperate need of? what are the children running from what has hamas done to help what children are running from? what wedeman describes? Are children faced with gunfire violence? Who describes violence, gunbattles?
of food, gas, and patience. guns After last June's takeover (or coup d'etat, as Fatah supporters call it), Hamas quickly imposed law and order, tried to reacquaint Gaza's drivers with long-forgotten traffic regulations, launched a municipal cleanup campaign, and forced the release of kidnapped BBC journalist Alan Johnston, guns reports from Gaza on daily life and reality As guns blazed, schoolchildren ran for cover. CNN's Ben Wedeman
question: Although it is safer for Gazans, what are they in desperate need of?, answer: of food, gas, and patience. | question: what are the children running from, answer: guns | question: what has hamas done to help, answer: After last June's takeover (or coup d'etat, as Fatah supporters call it), Hamas quickly imposed law and order, tried to reacquaint Gaza's drivers with long-forgotten traffic regulations, launched a municipal cleanup campaign, and forced the release of kidnapped BBC journalist Alan Johnston, | question: what children are running from?, answer: guns | question: what wedeman describes?, answer: reports from Gaza on daily life and reality | question: Are children faced with gunfire violence?, answer: As guns blazed, schoolchildren ran for cover. | question: Who describes violence, gunbattles?, answer: CNN's Ben Wedeman