Hamas cracks down on Fatah after Gaza bomb kills six (Roundup)

Jul 26, 2008, 11:34 GMT

Gaza City - Hamas forces arrested dozens of members of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' rival Fatah party Saturday, a day after a car bomb in western Gaza City killed five Hamas militants and a girl.

The radical Islamic movement ruling Gaza had blamed Fatah militants for the bomb attack.

A senior Fatah official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that more than 100 members of his movement in Gaza were arrested in total during raids by Hamas police and the so-called internal security service on their houses. The official described the arrests as 'kidnappings.'

Hamas police also raided Fatah offices as well as a number of charities throughout the Strip, confiscating documents and computers. They included the office of independent lawmaker Ziad Abu Amr, once supported by Hamas but now believed to be closer to Fatah.

Abu Amr was backed by Hamas in the 2006 parliamentary elections that voted him into the Palestinian Legislative Council, but grew more loyal to Fatah after the radical Islamic movement's violent take-over of the Strip of June 2007.

The lawmaker told reporters his office was ransacked and his car confiscated, calling the raid a 'violation of his parliamentary immunity.'

Among those detained by Hamas was a colonel working in the pro- Abbas intelligence service and a cameraman working for the German ARD television channel, other Fatah officials said.

The five members of Hamas' armed wing, the al-Qassam Brigades, and the girl killed in the car bomb attack late Friday had been picnicking at the beach in western Gaza City when the device exploded.

The car had been parked behind a tent used by a group of Hamas people. Dozens had also been reported wounded.

Ihab Nasser, director of the North Society for Social Development, said he was surprised to hear that police of the de-facto Hamas government had broken into his organisation's offices.

'It is a non-profit society and has nothing to do with the political situation,' Nasser said, adding that his organisation is currently running a United Nations-sponsored summer camp for children.

At dawn, members of the internal security service of Hamas broke into the house of Sawah Abu Saif, the ARD cameraman, seized his laptop and cellular phone and took him with them, his family said.

The crackdown comes after the interior ministry of the Hamas government said it opened an investigation into the explosion.

Hamas ousted the Fatah movement from Gaza in June 2007 by forcefully taking over the security headquarters of pro-Abbas forces.

The Palestinian president fired a Hamas-led coalition and appointed a western-backed administration ruling from West Bank. But Hamas, which has a majority in the parliament, has ignored the dismissal and continued to rule as a de-facto cabinet.