Hamas, which has been ruling the Gaza Strip since mid-June, on
Sunday called on Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to stop
crackdown by his security forces on Hamas activists in the
Abbas-held West Bank.
In a press statement, Hamas said pro-Abbas forces launched "a
general war, including systematic attacks," against Hamas activists
in the West Bank.
The statement also accused militants from Abbas' Fatah movement
of taking part in 472 kidnappings and 306 attacks against
Hamas-affiliated institutions and charities.
The Palestinian security services launched a detention campaign
against Hamas members and supporters in the West Bank in mid-June
right after Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip and seized
pro-Fatah and the Palestinian Authority (PA) facilities in the
Strip. Among the detainees in West Bank was Ahmed Dolla, a senior
Hamas leader who once held a key post at the interior ministry of
the Hamas-led government, which was dismissed by Abbas on June 14
following days of bloody Hamas-Fatah fighting.
Dolla started a hunger strike on Sunday, sparking calls by Hamas
to get him freed. The Islamic movement blamed Abbas on Dolla's
fate.
At the same time, however, Fatah accused Hamas of still doing
the same against Fatah members and leaders in the Hamas-controlled
Gaza Strip.
In another development, Hamas has started to recruit policewomen
to work at the detention centers that the Islamic movement seized
following its takeover of the Gaza Strip, a spokesman said
Sunday.
Ihab al-Ghussein, spokesman for the Interior Ministry of the
unity government sacked by President Mahmoud Abbas, said the new
drive was part "of the arrangements that the legitimate government
(unity government led by Hamas) undertakes to keep control of
security and order in the Gaza Strip."
Tens of women were hired and their work now is limited to the
prisons, according to al-Ghussein.
He also emphasized these procedures were provisional until the
Palestinian factions, mainly Hamas and its rival Fatah, resume
dialogue which stopped after the defeat of Abbas' Fatah during Gaza
fighting.
(Xinhua News Agency August 6, 2007)
