PA arrests more than 80 Hamas members in West Bank

The Palestinian Authority (PA) Security Services arrested on Sunday more than 80 Hamas members in the West Bank, Palestinian media reported.

According to the Palestinian newspaper Al-Resalah, Hamas said that this move came just one day after the PLO had decided to stop all forms of security coordination with the Israeli occupation.

Most of the people arrested are university professors, schools teachers, doctors, imams and society leaders. Some of them were journalists and former prisoners who had been kept in Israeli jails.

Hamas official Ismail Al-Askar called the PA’s ongoing security cooperation with the Israeli occupation an act of national betrayal, and “a knife in the back of the Palestinian people.”

The Fatah-led PA has continued to carry out arrests against members of Hamas in the West Bank, despite a unity deal reached between the rival movements last June.

Hamas Spokesman Ismail Ridwan told the Quds Press news agency yesterday that the raids proved that a decision by the PLO’s Central Council on 5 March to end security cooperation with Israel “was not worth the paper it was written on.”

“This vicious campaign against the movement proves that Fatah does not want reconciliation, and constantly tries to thwart it through arrests and other daily measures,” Ridwan said.

“Instead of implementing the decisions of the PLO’s Central Council by stopping the security coordination and resuming reconciliation talks … the PA continues its security coordination and its policy of political arrests against Hamas leaders and ex-prisoners.”