Get ready - A Movie Treat from Hamas...

Somehow, they have found the money to produce a full-length movie - but no romance in this film - just raw violence...

The first feature film produced by Hamas made its debut this weekend, complete with an exclusive crowd of local celebrities posing for photographers at the movie premier screening in Gaza.

The action-packed thriller, an homage to a top Hamas operative, cost only $200,000 to make and is being shown to segregated audiences of bearded men and veiled women.

"It's Hamaswood instead of Hollywood," Fathi Hamad, Gaza's Hamas interior minister, said after the film's first showing Friday evening at Gaza City's Islamic University. "We are trying to make quality art that is Islamic and about the resistance, without provocative (sexual) scenes."

Hamad doubled as producer, and the screenplay was penned by Mahmoud Zahar, the Gaza strongman seen as one of the architects of the group's violent takeover of Gaza two years ago.

Despite his fierce reputation, Zahar, a physician, has always had an artistic streak, with three novels and two screenplays to his credit.

The movie tells the story of Emad Akel, commander of the Hamas military wing, who was killed in a firefight with Israeli troops in Gaza in 1993.

Akel, 23 at the time, was known as "the ghost" for his many disguises, including dressing up as a Jewish settler with a skullcap. In the early 1990s, he topped Israel's wanted list for his suspected role in killing 11 Israeli soldiers, an Israeli civilian and four Palestinian informers in a series of attacks.

In the two-hour movie, titled "Emad Akel," there's plenty of action. The hero frequently leaps out of cars to open fire on Israeli soldiers, prompting bursts of applause from the audience each time. There's no romance, however, and the female actors all wear long robes and headscarves.

The actors playing the Israeli characters - soldiers, then-Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and his army chief of staff at the time, Ehud Barak - speak heavily accented Hebrew, with Arabic subtitles providing explanations.

Rabin frequently yells at an inept Barak - now Israel's defense minister - who can't stop Hamas fighters. Israeli soldiers always seem asleep. Sleazy Israeli handlers try to persuade Palestinians to collaborate by offering them women and alcohol.

The cast is made up of amateur actors, including 57-year-old carpenter Mohammed Abu Rous, who portrays Rabin, assassinated in 1995 by an ultranationalist Jew. "I wanted to serve my country just like Rabin served the Jews," said Abu Rous, who oddly resembles the Israeli leader.

The movie was shot over 10 months on a production lot that Hamas hopes will one day grow into a $200 million media city. As part of its media empire, Hamas already operates a Gaza-based satellite television station, a radio station and a dozen news Web sites. Two daily newspapers are linked to Hamas, and the group produces a Hamas newsletter and an occasional glossy for its militant wing.