Tension between PA and Hamas escalates in the West Bank

Tension between the Palestinian Authority security services and the Islamic Resistance Movement in the West Bank reached a peak last night after Hamas accused the PA security forces of cracking down on its supporters in the cities of Hebron, Tulkarem, Nablus and Ramallah. The incidents are the most serious since the two sides signed the reconciliation agreement in Gaza on April 23 to end their seven year split.

Hamas sources said that the PA security services and the police erected several checkpoints on the road between Birzeit and Ramallah to prevent the progress of a Hamas march, reported Alaraby Al-Jadeed news.

“PA security services and police attacked my father,” claimed the son of Hamas official Yousef al-Hassan, “and they threw obscene insults against him.” They also surrounded the march and put barriers in front of it, he added.

In the city of Tulkarem, Palestinian Legislative Council deputy Fathi Qaraawi said that members of the security services beat him during a march organised in solidarity with Palestinian prisoners. He was trying to prevent them from confiscating a camera from an Al-Quds TV reporter at the time.

In Hebron, a Hamas sit-in organised in solidarity with the prisoners ended in clashes between Hamas supporters and the director of the Prisoners’ Club in the city, Amjad Najjar. He accused the president of the PLC, Aziz Dweik of Hamas, of beating him and incitement against him when he announced that a member of the “prisoners on hunger strike high Commission”, Abbas Al-Sayyed, ended his hunger strike on Monday. Other sources confirmed that Al-Najjar and four others were hospitalised after the attack.

Nablus saw Hamas leader Wasfi Qabha telling Alaraby Al-Jadeed that the security services attacked fellow official Nazih Abu Aoun during a solidarity sit-in and arrested him. According to the director of Ahrar Centre for Prisoners’ Studies, Fouad Khuffash, the security forces in Nablus arrested the coordinator of the High Commission for Follow-up with Free Prisoners’ Affairs, Imad al-Din Eshtewi, on Monday evening.

A spokesman for the Palestinian security forces, Adnan Al-Dmeiri, accused Hamas of trying to provoke strife by not notifying the security agencies about their activities. “Hamas has an internal crisis,” he said, “and wants to blame the security services using the prisoners’ cause.” He noted that the security services seized dozens of Hamas banners and arrested 15 people “who started a riot” in Ramallah.

In response to the Hamas accusations, Dmeiri pointed out that the security services do not have a problem with any faction in the West Bank cities except Hamas. “There is an agreement between the security services and the Palestinian factions, including Fatah, not to raise their own flags during their activities and to raise the Palestinian flag only,” he insisted.

One journalist was arrested during the protests and another, Al-Ayyam reporter Yousef El-Shayyeb, accused security agents of confiscating his mobile phone and using obscenities against him. He said that he was hospitalised in Ramallah for treatment for severe back pain after the altercation.