Behind the clean-shaven men and fashionably dressed women from the former ruling Fatah Party sat rows of men with traditional Muslim beards and women in headscarves, the vanguard of the new top party, Hamas.
As roll was called, the Islamists held up portraits of lawmakers sitting in Israeli jails.
A quick scan of the seats at the first session of the new Hamas-dominated parliament Saturday made it very clear that a new Palestinian regime was in charge.
‘Now we see a major shift, an unprecedented shift, in Palestinian life,’ lawmaker Hanan Ashrawi said.
It was evident the session would be unorthodox even before it began.
Israel, angry at the victory of a group that calls for its destruction, refused to allow Hamas lawmakers to travel from Gaza to the West Bank city of Ramallah for the swearing-in ceremony. In response, about 30 lawmakers held a concurrent session in Gaza City linked to the Ramallah hall via videoconference.
About a dozen of the newly elected lawmakers are imprisoned in Israeli jails and one is in a Palestinian prison. Another two lawmakers could not attend because they are fugitives from Israel.
Lawmakers from Fatah and several smaller parties packed the front rows of the parliament session. Ashrawi wore pants. Former Finance Minister Salam Fayyad wore a finely tailored suit and a bright blue tie.
The rows behind them were filled with Hamas officials with a different fashion sense.
Mohammed Abu Teir, a prominent Hamas legislator, had his trademark bushy beard dyed red with henna. Other men from his faction sported closer trimmed beards, and very few were clean shaven. Hamas' female legislators were covered in scarves and bulky coats.
In Gaza, about 100 women from the Hamas Women's Union attended the satellite session with their faces hidden by veils.
Khalida Jarrar, a lawmaker from the radical Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, propped a portrait of Ahmed Saadat on a chair next to her. Saadat, the head of the PFLP, is currently in a Palestinian jail under foreign supervision in the West Bank town of Jericho for ordering the assassination of an Israeli Cabinet minister.
In an interview from his cell, Saadat said he held court for many politicians in recent days, as Hamas officials visited to discuss forming a coalition with his three-member parliamentary faction and Fatah officials tried to persuade him not to join the government.
Saadat said that if he is not released, the Palestinians should provide him with video conferencing equipment so he can participate in future sessions from his cell.