"When I was coming from Khan Younis town, I noticed heavy deployment of Hamas police forces with riot gear all the way up to Gaza City," Suzan Aabed said Saturday.

The 25-year-old who works in the private sector in Gaza City and travels there from the southern Strip town of Khan Younis everyday, said she thought the deployment was meant to maintain security for high school students starting final exams.

But soon, she realized that Saturday marks the first anniversary of the takeover of the Gaza Strip by the militant Islamic Hamas movement.

"When they deployed to provide security for the students a few days ago, they were not wearing helmets and flack jackets and holding sticks," Aabed said.

On June 15, 2007, Hamas completed its takeover of the coastal Strip after bitter fighting with its rival, the Fatah movement of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

On her half-hour trip to Gaza City on Saturday, Aabed saw many Hamas police checkpoints along Saladin road - which extends across the Strip.

The measure was seen as a bid to prevent Fatah supporters from marking the event that they deem a coup.

Hamas used to call the takeover "a military settlement" which cut the way before a group of Fatah "aligned with Israel and the United States and carried out their plans to topple Hamas which won parliamentary elections in January 2006."

Islam Shahwan, a spokesman for Hamas police, said "there was a decision to ban any activity" to protest Hamas' June 2007 takeover.

But, he added, no attempts to mark the anniversary by Fatah supporters or employees of pro-Abbas forces were registered.

"The instructions so far are not clear despite the banning decision but we will deal with any incident according to its nature," he added.

Shahwan explained that the police were keen not to remind people of the events surrounding the takeover that followed weeks of heavy fighting.

More than 400 Palestinians, mostly security men affiliated to Abbas' forces, were killed during the clashes.

When the Gaza battles started, Hamas was heading a coalition government with Fatah. After the clashes, Abbas fired the unity government and formed a western-backed administration based in Ramallah, opening the door for a new political struggle. Hamas rejected its dismissal and the new government led by Salam Fayyad.

A member of the pro-Abbas forces, who now receives his salary from Ramallah without going to work under Hamas command, says he will not mark the "coup" anniversary for fear that Hamas will "again do what it did last November."

The 21-year-old, who asked that his name be withheld, was referring to the death of 11 Fatah supporters in an attack by Hamas forces on an event to mark the third anniversary of the death of former Palestinian president Yasser Arafat.

He and his friends had initially planned to express their views by wearing black cloths and raising black flags from their windows on Saturday but changed their minds.

"We became afraid after the detention of some Fatah leaders who also planned to do the same and we cancelled the idea in order to give a chance for our president's call for dialogue," he said.

A few days ago, Abbas called for national dialogue with Hamas to end the political division between Gaza and West Bank, having previously rejected talks with Hamas unless it gives up control of Gaza. (dpa)