Unity government 'discriminates and marginalises Gaza', claims Hamas

The Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, has said that the unity government is practicing a policy of “discrimination and marginalisation” against the Gaza Strip, Anadolu has reported. According to group spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri, Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah’s remarks about Hamas’s governance of Gaza are “full of fallacies.”

“We condemn Hamdallah’s repeated allegations about the absence of work for the government in Gaza,” said Abu Zuhri, “because there are four ministers running their ministries normally.” He suggested that the unity government is trying to cover-up what he described as its “crime of negligence and marginalisation” against the Gaza Strip.

Abu Zuhri rejected Hamdallah’s comments on political detentions in the West Bank, adding that they prove his involvement in security cooperation with Israel. “We are in front of a factional government that has reinforced divisions more than any previous government in the West Bank,” the Hamas spokesman added.

The movement’s statement was issued in response to comments made by Palestinian Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah in a press conference at his office in Ramallah on Wednesday.

Hamdallah commented on Hamas’s criticism of the Palestinian security services for arresting dozens of the movement’s supporters in the West Bank. “There are no political detainees in the Palestinian National Security’s prisons,” insisted the prime minister. “All the arrests were carried out in accordance with the law on charges of possession of weapons and money, against all factions.”

Around 250 Hamas supporters in the West Bank are now in Palestinian Authority prisons.