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BEIT LAHIYA, GAZA STRIP - Day after day, Saladin Sultan sits in his nearly empty corner market as his family's economic lifeblood drains away.

Suppliers come every day and ask Sultan to settle mounting debts he can't afford to pay. There's almost nothing for him to sell, which doesn't matter so much since his customers don't have any money to buy.

To feed his wife and five children, Sultan sold off one of the store's refrigerators. Then, at his wife's urging, he sold his gold wedding ring.

Late last month, the 39-year-old merchant sold the living room furniture.

Now, with Israel tightening its economic chokehold on Gaza, Sultan and the entire Gaza Strip are heading into a dangerous tailspin from which the World Bank has warned there may be no pulling out.

"The situation is so bad that you really prefer to die," Sultan said. "I prefer to die rather than to live a life like this."

In the four months since Hamas seized effective control of the Gaza Strip in a brutal military takeover, Israel has cut off the desolate region from the outside world and created a political crisis for the Islamist militant group now leading the government there.

Popular support for Hamas appears to be dwindling as frustration builds.

While Hamas managed to restore a semblance of safety to the Gaza Strip, it has failed to do much more. The Hamas-led government enjoys virtually no international recognition. Israel and the United States have rushed to shore up Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who has championed the international campaign to marginalize Hamas.

Now Hamas is confronting intense internal fissures.

Ghazi Hamad, one of the best-known Hamas pragmatists in the Gaza Strip, has been effectively sidelined after criticizing the militant group for leading the Palestinians into an international political ambush.

Hamad, who until recently served as chief spokesman for deposed Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, called the Hamas takeover a "serious strategic mistake that burdened the movement more than it can bear."

Other Hamas leaders in Gaza are vowing not to let the latest Israeli steps force them to capitulate. But Israel's actions have created rank stagnation that is permeating daily life.

Stores along Gaza City's main streets are shuttered. Greenhouses along the coast lie abandoned. Factories near the Israeli borders are deserted.

A putrid smell fills the air as sewage trickles past half-finished water treatment projects and out into the Mediterranean Sea.

Since June, the number of Gaza residents pushed into poverty has mushroomed.

Two-thirds of the 100,000 private-sector jobs have been lost. The World Bank has warned that "any economic backbone and private-sector vitality in Gaza risks collapse if the current closure policy continues."

Things are about to get worse. Late last month, Israel began tightening the screws, closing one of the two remaining crossings used to transfer food and other supplies in and out of the Gaza Strip.