100 political prisoners detained by the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank

A member of Hamas’s Legislative Council, Hassan Yousef, has said that there are still around 100 political prisoners currently being detained by the Palestinian Authority (PA) despite the recent prisoner release, Safa news agency reported.

In a press statement issued on Thursday, Yousef called on the PA to immediately release all political detainees and to stop hounding “the sons of the Islamic movement”.

Yousef also demanded the implementation and application of reconciliation files, especially with regard to the role of the Legislative Council and the leading framework of the PLO.

“We need that in order to assess the past period, especially the reconciliation path, and to try to reach a Palestinian general consensus on what should be done to preserve the stability of our rights and our constants and not to sacrifice them under any circumstances; in addition to embracing the resistance project, in all its forms, in the face of the Israeli challenges,” he said.

As to Israel’s recent announcement that it would not hesitate to re-sentence prisoners released during the exchange deal with Gilad Dhalit, Yousef said: “The occupation break all the promises it made in the Devotion of the Free deal. The occupation does not respect any agreement and does not know any covenants or promises.”

“These sentences come in the context of provoking and putting pressure on prisoners of Hamas, so that the occupation may gain any information regarding the missing Israeli soldiers in the Gaza Strip,” Yousef added.

He stressed that “all of this cannot benefit the occupation in any way, but would rather increases the resistance’s insistence to hold on to its own terms; mainly the release of all Palestinian freed prisoners included in the Devotion of the Free deal, who have been re-arrested with sentences re-issued against a number of them.”